Join me in Germany in June
I have been selected to speak at the DataGrillen conference later this year. I will be presenting my session How Does SQL Server Store That Data Type?,… Read More »Join me in Germany in June
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data types
Be careful with table updates
The dire warning in the subject line is not meant to scare you. Rather, it is advice that is going to be useful to those… Read More »Be careful with table updates
Join me at the EightKB virtual conference on 28 July 2021
Next week on Wednesday 28 July 2021, I will be presenting a brand-new session titled “How SQL Server stores that data type” for the free… Read More »Join me at the EightKB virtual conference on 28 July 2021
A quick primer on binary and hexadecimal
A few years ago, I wrote that a CPU is “a hot mess of on-off switches.” There’s more to it than that when you get… Read More »A quick primer on binary and hexadecimal
How SQL Server stores data types: sql_variant
This post looks at a curious data type that isn’t really a data type. Instead, sql_variant tries to be all things to all people. As… Read More »How SQL Server stores data types: sql_variant
How SQL Server stores data types: XML
This week we’re looking at how the database engine stores the XML data type in SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. If you would like to… Read More »How SQL Server stores data types: XML
The final word on storage for DATETIME2
Two years ago I wrote a post that got a lot of traction in the comments at the time. Last month there was renewed interest… Read More »The final word on storage for DATETIME2
Canada Day 2020
It’s Canada Day here, the commemoration of the country’s confederation in 1867. Given events over the last few months such as the worldwide pandemic, followed… Read More »Canada Day 2020
How should I store currency values in SQL Server?
On Twitter, Michael Dyrynda writes: ⚠️ Never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever… Read More »How should I store currency values in SQL Server?
How SQL Server stores data types: money
In this post we look at how SQL Server stores currency values using the MONEY and SMALLMONEY data types. If you’d like to read the… Read More »How SQL Server stores data types: money
How SQL Server stores data types: integers and decimals
This week we’re going to look at how numbers are stored. This post will cover integers (TINYINT, SMALLINT, INT, BIGINT), and decimals (DECIMAL, which is… Read More »How SQL Server stores data types: integers and decimals
Negative identity values don’t suck
A quick(er) post this week, in response to Greg Low’s blog post from a few weeks ago titled “Don’t start identity columns or sequences with… Read More »Negative identity values don’t suck
The XML data type is not immutable
Immutability In many programming languages, strings of text are immutable, meaning they don’t change. When you modify a string, a new string is created in… Read More »The XML data type is not immutable
The easy way to handle UTF-8 in a .NET application when dealing with SQL Server 2019
A short post this week. On a mailing list recently, someone noticed that a .NET application writing to SQL Server did not have the expected… Read More »The easy way to handle UTF-8 in a .NET application when dealing with SQL Server 2019
Dates and Times in SQL Server: What about TIMESTAMP?
It occurred to me that we haven’t covered the TIMESTAMP data type in this series about dates and times. TIMESTAMP is the Windows Millennium Edition… Read More »Dates and Times in SQL Server: What about TIMESTAMP?