Category: Syntax

Bert Wagner explains the CHOOSE() function:

While I know I don’t utilize most of the features available in SQL Server, I like to think I’m at least aware that those features exist.

This week I found a blind-spot in my assumption however. Even though it shipped in SQL Server 2012, the SQL Server CHOOSE function is a feature that I think I’m seeing for the first time this past week.

CHOOSE() and IIF() were functions ported over to make it easier for Access and Excel users to write code. I tend to avoid them because there are typically better idiomatic constructs (like CASE) in SQL Server.

Jack Vamvas shows how you can delete data from a remote server using OPENQUERY:

How can I DELETE using OPENQUERY?   Normally for a SELECT from OPENQUERY , I’ll do something like :

SELECT col1 ,col2  FROM OPENQUERY (MY_LINKED_SERVER,'SELECT col1,col2  FROM MY_LINKED_TABLE')

Can a similar method be used but for DELETE?

Click through for the answer.

Ed Elliott takes us through problems with the PIVOT statement:

If you have a PIVOT query and it isn’t returning the data you expect, what can you do to troubleshoot it? The thing to do is to break it down into the constituent parts. First, lets take a look at a query and see what we can do to help.

Click through for potential problems and their solutions.

Max Vernon takes us through the .modify function:

Determining the property syntax when modifying XML values in SQL Server can be time consuming if you don’t work with XML regularly. SQL Server includes a very flexible XML subsystem, called XML_DML, or XML Data Manipulation Language. XML_DML can be used to easily and effectively update XML values in an xml-typed column or variable. This question on dba.stackexchange.comasked about using the .modify function to change the value of an element, which in turn prompted this post.

Read on for a number of examples.

Solomon Rutzky dives into how big a table value constructor can be in terms of rows:

On 2019-05-08, a helpful individual, Michael B, commented on my answer saying that the 1000-row limit only existed when using a TVC as the VALUES clause of an INSERT statement. And, that there was no limit when using a TVC as a derived table.

Could this be true?

Solomon finds out. Click through and so can you.

Itzik Ben-Gan provides quality information on working with subqueries in SQL Server:

In this plan you see a Nested Loops (Left Semi Join) operator, with a scan of the clustered index on Customers as the outer input and a seek in the index on the customerid column in the Orders as the inner input. You also see an outer reference (correlated parameter) based on the custid column in Customers, and the seek predicate Orders.customerid = Customers.custid.

So why are you getting the plan in Figure 1 and not the one in Figure 2? If you haven’t figured it out yet, look closely at the definitions of both tables—specifically the column names—and at the column names used in the query. You will notice that the Customers table holds customer IDs in a column called custid, and that the Orders table holds customer IDs in a column called customerid. However, the code uses custid in both the outer and inner queries. 

Itzik covers three specific scenarios, all of which can cause trouble to database developers who haven’t been burned yet. And sometimes even those who have.