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Month: June 2025

Creating a SQL Server 2025 Container

Published 2025-06-02 by Kevin Feasel

Vlad Drumea tries out SQL Server 2025:

This post covers creating SQL Server 2025 containers in Podman, Qnap Container Station, and sqlcmd, and restoring a sample database to test the new version.

One important thing to remember is that all SQL Server 2025 containers are based on the Linux build of SQL Server. For 90% of tasks (give or take), that won’t matter, and you’ll still have a good time trying out the new version of SQL Server and make sure things still work in your databases the way you expect them to. But some functionality (e.g., merge replication) is not available in Linux and other functionality (like PolyBase or Machine Learning Services) has a very different installation process.

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psql Meta-Commands

Published 2025-06-02 by Kevin Feasel

Ian Parker shows off some meta-commands:

If you manage PostgreSQL from a terminal you already know psql, the interactive client that ships with every installation. Most developers use it for the basics—running SELECT statements, loading a .sql file, maybe poking around with \dt to see which tables exist.

Beneath that familiar surface, though, psql hides a rich toolbox of meta-commands. These commands, all prefixed with a backslash, live inside the client. They’re not SQL, they’re shortcuts built into psql itself, and they can make everyday tasks faster and far less error-prone.

Read on for six of these, including examples like \watch to view something with periodic refresh.

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