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Category: Misc Languages

.NET 5 C# Language Extension for SQL Server

Published 2021-09-09 by Kevin Feasel

Nikita Takru makes an announcement:

SQL Server 2019 supports the R, Python, and Java Language Extensions. These language extensions provide many benefits to developers. They provide data security, rapid speed for deployment, and ease of integration.

Previously, we announced the release of Java, R, and Python extensions. Today we are thrilled to share that we are open sourcing the .NET 5 C# Language Extension for SQL Server on GitHub.

My response to this is roughly the same as what Panagiotis Kanavos put in a GitHub issue. F#, being a functional programming language intended for things like data analysis, would be a no-brainer. And the choice of Windows-only support probably helped get it out the door faster, but can be limiting over time.

I guess the short version is, we’ll see what the community does with this. I’d also like to see how it compares to CLR on actions. My guess is that it’ll be slower based on the way the R and Python engines work, but that’s just a guess. Overall, I’m happy this exists and want it to be more useful.

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Image Classification with ML.NET

Published 2021-09-07 by Kevin Feasel

Ivan Matec shows how to use ML.NET’s image classification with an example of vital importance:

One of the best scenes from Silicon Valley is Jian Yang demoing his “Hotdog, not hotdog” application. In this article, we will build our own “Hotdog, not hotdog” solution using ML.NET. After all, who would not want to determine if that dish is, or is not a hot dog? Just take a picture, upload it to the web or desktop application, and get results with almost 90% certainty in a second.

Although some may say this is not a very useful application, it is a fun way to explore another machine learning concept through ML.NET. I covered installing and getting started with ML.NET in Visual Studio in my previous article, so refer to it if you missed it.

Click through for the implementation, which is quite straightforward.

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Advanced Functions in Powershell

Published 2021-09-07 by Kevin Feasel

Robert Cain moves from basic to advanced:

In my previous post, I covered the use of PowerShell Basic Functions. In this post we’ll cover Advanced Functions.

Advanced Functions provide several abilities over basic ones. First, you can create a detailed parameter list, including the ability to include optional parameters.

Second, you can pipeline enable your functions. Just like a cmdlet, you’ll be able to take input from the pipeline, work with it, then send it out your function back into the pipeline. This will be the subject of our next post.

Finally, you can use features such as Verbose and Debug, which will be the subject of an upcoming blog post.

Click through for examples of what you can do with advanced functions.

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Solving the Knapsack Problem with PostgreSQL

Published 2021-09-02 by Kevin Feasel

Francesco Tisiot is packing for a trip:

People have had to pack luggage for a long time, so this optimization dilemma is far from new. It even has a name: the knapsack problem. It can be applied to a variety of use cases where there is a set of items with a defined weight (space occupied in the luggage in our example) and value (item benefits during holiday) and where the total weight is limited (luggage size).

The end goal is to come up with a set of items that fits within the weight constraint and has the maximum possible value.

Francesco provides us one possible solution to the problem. I like the knapsack problem a lot, but I like the Holyfield problem even more.

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Full Query Logging in Cassandra 4.0

Published 2021-08-25 by Kevin Feasel

Shelby Carpenter explains a new feature in Apache Cassandra 4.0:

First off, we need to understand what counts as a full query log (FQL) in Cassandra. Full query logs record all successful Cassandra Query Language (CQL) requests. Audit logs (also a new feature of Cassandra 4.0), on the other hand, contain both successful and unsuccessful CQL requests. (To learn about the different forms of logging and diagnostic events in Cassandra 4.0, check out this blog by Instaclustr Co-Founder and CTO Ben Bromhead.)

The FQL framework was implemented to be lightweight from the very beginning so there is no need to worry about the performance. This is achieved by a library called Chronicle Queues, which is designed for low latency and high-performance messaging for critical applications.

Read on for information on use cases as well as how you can configure and access full query log information.

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From API Call to ML Services Prediction

Published 2021-08-20 by Kevin Feasel

Tomaz Kastrun continues a series:

From the previous two blog posts:

– Creating REST API for reading data from Microsoft SQL Server in web browser

– Writing Data to Microsoft SQL Server from web browser using REST API and node.js

We have looked into the installation process of Node.js, setup of Microsoft SQL Server and made couple of examples on reading the data from database through REST API and how to insert data back to database.

In this post, we will be looking the R predictions using API calls against a sample dataset.

Click through to see it in action.

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Ways to Filter Data in PostgreSQL

Published 2021-08-19 by Kevin Feasel

Gauri Mahajan shows off several techniques for filtering data in PostgreSQL:

Data is hosted in a variety of data repositories, one of which is relational databases. Out of tens of commercial and open-source relational databases, one of the most popular open-source relational databases is PostgreSQL. This database is offered on the Azure cloud platform through a service named Azure Database for PostgreSQL. One of the most fundamental operations performed on the database is reading and writing data to consume and host data. It goes without saying that when the data is consumed, it must be scoped based on the requirements or criteria specified by the consumer. This translates to filtering the data while querying it. Like every other relational database, Postgres offers different operators and options to filter data while querying. Let’s go ahead and learn some of the most fundamental ways to filter data hosted in PostgreSQL.

Most of them are the same as what you have in T-SQL, but not everything.

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Working around Unparameterized IN Clauses with EF

Published 2021-08-17 by Kevin Feasel

Erik Darling bears the bad news:

If you’re using an Entity Framework, and sending in queries that build up IN clauses, they won’t end up getting parameterized.

Even Forced Parameterization won’t help you if you’re sending in other parameters. One limitation is that it doesn’t kick in for partially parameterized queries.

Even if they did get parameterized, well, what’s one funny thing about IN clauses? You don’t know how many values will be in them.

Read on for a couple of work-arounds for this.

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Creating Functions in Kusto Queries

Published 2021-08-17 by Kevin Feasel

Dennes Torres continues a series on working with the Kusto language:

In the previous blog, I illustrated how to create sub-queries in Kusto.

However, sometimes we may face even more complex situations and we may need to create not only a sub-query, but a function.

Another way to think about a function inside a Kusto query is like a parameterized sub-query.

Read on for an example of creating a Kusto function.

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Creating a REST API on SQL Server Data

Published 2021-08-10 by Kevin Feasel

Tomaz Kastrun needs to get at some data:

REST API (or RESTful API) is a application programming interface (abbreviated as API) that complies with REST architectural style and is created to allow communication, information flow and interaction with REST (Representational State Transfare) web services. API is used as an interface for communication between two or more programs (or machines) and provides content required from one side to another side (known as consumer and producer; call/request and response).

Getting data from and to database using API is great for building integration with application and retrieving to client all the information in JSON format only once, instead of every time an action occurs on frontend. Yes there are multiple ways to push data to frontend, it can be entity framework, it can be Dapper, it can be T-SQL with procedures layer, it can be REST API, and many many others.

Click through to see how Tomaz does it with Node.Js.

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