Protean

We try to avoid SQL Server user-defined functions unless we can be certain that there is no other way to achieve what it is we’re asking of them. They aren’t very performant as they calculate on a row by row basis rather than the set based operations that our esteemed RDMS is renowned for.

Having said this I am going to post a table function I created recently for use as part of an SSIS import package that transforms an incoming single row CSV into roughly 100 records each time it runs.

The content team in our organisation faces the soul-destroying task of entering records as well as comma delimited strings on to an Excel spreadsheet which in turn is imported into 2 SQL tables.

There is no straight forward way to split the csv string into a SELECT list, but here is what I have done…

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Ever had a multitude of SQL Agent jobs with dependencies on one another in order for your nightly batch to succeed? Ever had a situation where you forgot to set the steps correctly within the job resulting in the batch failing or not even running at all?

Me too… here’s what I did in order to protect myself from human error.

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I have just finished the code for a new transactional replication setup.

Requirements were to be able to filter rows according to the destinations that formed part of the fullfilment of the order. This could theoretically include up to 10 destinations however in reality it tended to be 2 or 3. The data would be real-time messages flowing out of the mainframe into the SQL Server via BizTalk.

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Ever been stuck trying to figure out what people are doing on your server, but unable to tell from DBCC InputBuffer what statements the users are running? This is one of the most useful scripts I’ve come accross and helps enormously when trying to analyse what is happening on your SQL Server.

It is often the case that users will query your database with tools like MS Access or Business Objects which are quite difficult to track. Well this useful tool helps to solve that problem… 

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