wetmatter nonsense

Needing some sort of variation or at least a break from my certification studies I decided to revisit a title I purchased a while back: "Beginning SQL Server 2008 for Developers" from @Apress written by Robin Dewson. Truly glad I did because one of the problems I have when illustrating data related issues to clients is having to piece together a bloody spreadsheet. I typically would query the tables then query the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS or sys.columns to get the column names to use as headers. Then I would copy and paste them into the predetermined rows.

Well not any more because page 42-43 of this awesome book had life changing screenshots of the Options dialog. Big deal right? Well a big deal for me at least! Following the path of Query Results --> SQL Server --> Results to Grid lead me to a sudden state of euphoria. There I saw it as the lights of heaven filled my home, blurring everything around me as if a spotlight and magnify focused in on the wonderful words that read: "Include column headers when copying or saving the results". Was it really true, are my days of querying sys.columns or the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS finally over? In a way, maybe, not really, but at the very least delivering requested spreadsheets to clients will be a bit faster. I was so excited I tried this on MSSQL 2005 and sure enough it is there!

What you need to do is: 

Step 1 - Go to Tools --> Options

Step 2 - Expand Query Results --> SQL Server --> Results to Grid

Then check the box titled: Include column headers when copying or saving the results

Step 3 - Copy some cells

If you have tabs opened already, open a new query window and try it. You should see the menu item "Copy with Headers" as a right click option

Step 4 - Then paste your results into the spreadsheet

Just a side note, if you are dealing with datetime data types you should consider making the predetermined columns in the spreadsheet as a text category by formatting the cells, under the Number tab select the "Text" category.

Cover image taken from Apress.

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Today I was working on a SELECT query, nothing special or anything to get excited about. Looking through a single table for a few pieces of data. For this example I will refer to the Northwind database.

 
SELECT [ProductID] 
       ,[ProductName] 
       ,[SupplierID] 
       ,[CategoryID] 
       ,[QuantityPerUnit] 
       ,[UnitPrice]
       ,[UnitsInStock]
       ,[UnitsOnOrder]
       ,[ReorderLevel]
       ,[Discontinued]
 FROM [Northwind].[dbo].[Products]
 WHERE (CategoryID = 3) OR (UnitPrice = 14.00) OR (UnitsInStock > 100) 

Looks fairly straight forward right and it is. I mean there is nothing wrong with it. I can execute it and it returns 25 rows exactly what I was searching for. Well I decided to check out the Estimated Execution Plans (CTRL+L) while you are in SSMS to see what it looked like.

One thing I did not notice until now was the fact I can place the cursor over the lines or data flow arrows and get a little more detail about what is being returned. I knew that hovering over the icons returned some information about each, but I really didn't know what the data represented.

Then I remembered reading a post a while back that said it is better in this particular scenario to use a UNION ALL instead. Matter of fact here is the link: donetheaven.com. I love books marks! So the re-write would look like the following.

 
SELECT [ProductID]
       ,[ProductName]
       ,[SupplierID]
       ,[CategoryID]
       ,[QuantityPerUnit]
       ,[UnitPrice]
       ,[UnitsInStock]
       ,[UnitsOnOrder]
       ,[ReorderLevel]
       ,[Discontinued]
 FROM [Northwind].[dbo].[Products]
 WHERE (CategoryID = 3)
 UNION ALL
 SELECT [ProductID]
       ,[ProductName]
       ,[SupplierID]
       ,[CategoryID]
       ,[QuantityPerUnit]
       ,[UnitPrice]
       ,[UnitsInStock]
       ,[UnitsOnOrder]
       ,[ReorderLevel]
       ,[Discontinued]
 FROM [Northwind].[dbo].[Products]
 WHERE (UnitPrice = 14.00)
 UNION ALL
 SELECT [ProductID]
       ,[ProductName]
       ,[SupplierID]
       ,[CategoryID]
       ,[QuantityPerUnit]
       ,[UnitPrice]
       ,[UnitsInStock]
       ,[UnitsOnOrder]
       ,[ReorderLevel]
       ,[Discontinued]
 FROM [Northwind].[dbo].[Products]
 WHERE (UnitsInStock > 100)  

This query returned 27 rows and the execution plans for this turned out quite different.Take a look.

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As you may have heard SQL Saturday Phoenix is underway. We are aiming for an end of July time frame and are in need of the community's involvement. We need presenters, sponsors and volunteers. All is open to suggestions so please, PLEASE voice your opinion and participate. 

If you are interested in supporting SQL Saturday Phoenix please signup using the appropriate form below. Please pass this information on.

• Presenters Signup form
• Sponsors Signup form
• Volunteers Signup form
• Suggestions form

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This is a quick vid that steps you through the process of creating a database snapshot, restoring a database from a snapshot and dropping a snapshot. I typically use snapshot while I am in a testing mode. I quickly create a snapshot and make all my modifications, run through my test and blow it all away by restoring from my recent snapshot. It is very useful and I use it often on my local development instances. Hopefully you will find it just as useful.

Create Database Snapshot

 CREATE DATABASE AdventureWorks_20100401_1700 ON
 (
    NAME = AdventureWorks_Data
    ,FILENAME = '<file path>\AdventureWorks_20100401_1700.ss'
 )
 AS SNAPSHOT OF AdventureWorks; 

Revert from a Database Snapshot

 RESTORE DATABASE AdventureWorks FROM
 DATABASE_SNAPSHOT = 'AdventureWorks_20100401_1700'; 

Drop Database Snapshot

 DROP DATABASE AdventureWorks_20100401_1700 

Updated 3/24/2010 - Note: SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition does not support Database Snapshots. SQL Server 2005 Enterprise and Developer Editions do.

For more information about Database Snapshots visit the Microsoft site for Database Snapshots

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This video steps you through the installation process of installing
SQL Server 2000 very quickly and very straightforward. This video is
one part of a series that goes through the upgrade process from 2000
to 2005 and on to 2008.

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