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Day: April 22, 2019

Modifying HTML Rendering in Shiny

Senthil Thyagarajan gives us an example of uisng the htmltools package to change the way tables render in Shiny:

In order to build the html table I have used a function table_frame which can be used as a container in DT::renderdatatable. This function basically uses htmltools. For more references on the basics of html tables please refer here

In addition to changing the colors, Senthil also shows how to add a couple of buttons which call Javascript functions. H/T R-bloggers

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SSMS Grid Options

Michelle Haarhues provides details on the different options for sending results to a grid in SQL Server Management Studio:

What is Results to Grid and what can it do for you?  Results to Grid are Query Results options in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) that can help users customize their query results in a variety of ways that can help make users more efficient.  Some of these might be little changes, but when used often throughout the day, they can make a big difference.  Once you change the setting, you will need to open a new query window for the change to go into effect

The two I wish were on by default are column headers when copying or saving results, and retaining CR/LF on copy or save.

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Power BI Report Builder Map Gallery Customization

David Eldersveld shows off how you can customize maps in the Power BI Report Builder Map Gallery:

One of the defining features of Power BI’s [paginated] Report Builder vs the current geospatial offerings in Power BI Desktop is the native support for ESRI Shapefiles. If you have worked with maps in Report Builder over the years, you may have used the Map Gallery. The Map Gallery offers a collection of built-in geographies, but you can also customize and enhance what’s available out of the box.

David takes us through an example of simplifying one map, but the same technique can help in other ways.

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Multi-Pattern Replacement with SQL Server

Hugo Kornelis has a pattern matching problem to solve:

The actual use case and the list of patterns that I had to remove are considered a confidential competitive advantage by my client, so I will just make up a list here to illustrate the problem. In this fake requirement, the following patterns must all be removed if anywhere in the string: “-@@%”, “@@%”, “-@%”, “@%”, “No.X#X”, and “^^^”. Also, “@X” needs to be removed when at the end of the string. In these patterns, @ is a placeholder for a numeric symbol, X for an alphabetic symbol, and # for an alphabetic or numeric symbol. All other symbols are to be taken literally. (So “%” is the percent mark, not the LIKE pattern for any character!).

This is a problem for regular expressions, but without built-in regular expressions (and I’d guess no desire to use the CLR), Hugo gives us a workable solution.

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Connecting with Read Intent

John McCormack shows two ways to connect to an Availablity Group listener with read-only intent:

SQLCMD
The -Kreadonly switch is your key to success here but remember to also specify the database using -d. When not set (and with an initial catalog of master for my login), I found I always got the primary instance back during my check. This simple omission cost me hours of troubleshooting work, because I was convinced my listener wasn’t working correctly. In fact, I just wasn’t testing it correctly.

There’s some good information in here for sqlcmd and for SQL Server Management Studio.

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Query Editing with Azure SQL Database

Dave Bland shows off the Azure SQL Database query editor built into the Azure portal:

We have all been using SQL Server Management Studio to query and manipulate data, even for an Azure SQL database.  There is also an option to do this same thing built into the SQL Azure database interface in the Azure portal.  Although there have been a number of posts related to this topic dating back a few years, this feature is still marked as “preview” in the Azure portal.

Click through to see how it works, what you can do with it, and some of its limitations.

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Temporary Staging with SSIS

Andy Leonard shares one technique for reusing a data set in SSIS:

A work table is a table defined in a nearby data location; either a schema in the source or target database or in a database on the same instance. I take a constraint-driven approach to work table location selection. Closer – a schema in the same database – is often better for performance.

I write this knowing some folks will frown at the suggestion of polluting a data source or target database with additional schemas and tables. Best practices exist for a reason. It’s helpful to maintain a list of best practices and to include in this list the reasons each practice exists. This could be a case where violating one or more best practices is justified.

Andy throws out a few ideas as alternatives but states his preference for using work tables to solve this problem.

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