Creating an index in SQL Server is a moderately simple task that improves the query performance. We can create a clustered as well as a non-clustered index which can be either unique or non-unique as per requirement.

The TRY_CAST function in SQL Server is used to cast value from its existing data type to a specified target data type. This occurs only if the operation is successful. It returns NULL if the conversion fails. TRY_CAST is an extended version of the CAST function. This tutorial explains how to use TRY_CAST in SQL […]

The ANSI_NULLS database SET option controls the behavior of Equal (=) and comparison operators (!=) in queries while dealing with NULL records. It is an ISO standard to decide for a query action to conclude how SQL Server should handle the comparison with NULLs.

How often do we think of NULL values while concatenating NULLs with string values? String concentration with NULL values can give us some unexpected results if we are not aware of CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL database SET options. CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL options control whether concatenation results shall be treated as NULL or empty string values.

To learn the basics of SQL Server, you must have an understanding of how an SQL Server query engine executes an SQL query. T-SQL involves both logical and physical query processing. Physical query processing is about how a database engine processes a query. Logical query processing is a conceptual flow, an order of the clauses […]

SQL Server has introduced multiple ways to handle NULL values. The functions that are most used to handle NULLs are COALESCE and ISNULL in SQL Server. These functions are used to find Non-NULL values from a list of arguments. In this post, we will see the uses of the ISNULL and COALESCE functions and their […]

SQL Server has supported SEQUENCE objects since the inception of SQL Server 2012 and later editions. Oracle database has supported SEQUENCE objects from the beginning. You can read the archive post on Tech-Recipes using SEQUENCE in Oracle.

Let’s assume you are constructing a new house, and you have a contract with a builder. After thoughtful examination of the area, height, and materials needed, he estimates it will take 120 days to build a new home. After constructing the home, it actually took 200 days to built it. There is a difference between […]

SQL Server is an all-in-one IDE for managing multiple user instances, SQL programming, and changing settings using graphical options. Often, we need to find out when a stored procedure/trigger was last modified, or we need to find the creation date of existing objects in SQL server. Finding the creation dates and the modification dates of […]

Not many Windows users are familiar with CMD. The common misconception is that only programmers and computer geeks use CMD. Basically, CMD is a tool that you can use to communicate with your Windows computer. Though the user interface and other input methods are introduced, CMD is one tool that you cannot take for granted. […]

While querying the production server to solve one critical issue, suddenly one query completely caught my attention. We had written a query which was created to find records which exist in Table A but do not exist in Table B, based on a certain column. The query was syntactically correct and ran without any errors, […]

Based on what I have heard from friends and other online users and from my own personal experience, the most common job interview question for database programmers is “How do you find the highest salary in an employee table?” This question tests a candidate’s knowledge of ranking functions, subqueries, common table expression (CTE) and basic […]