Just one more thing, an essay on troubleshooting
Over the weekend I watched — for the first time in my life — an episode of the long-running ABC and NBC police show Columbo, starring Peter Falk. I originally knew him from the film…
T-SQL Tuesday Retrospective #012: Why DBA skills are necessary
This is my ongoing series of answering T-SQL Tuesday posts far too late to be of any use. Click here if you want to read previous entries. Paul Randal asked us in November 2010 why…
Read the error message
This post is brought to you — indirectly — from a boss I loved working for, on a project which almost killed me, at a company which I had to walk away from to restore…
Dates and Times in SQL Server: DATEDIFF() and DATEDIFF_BIG()
Last time we looked at adding or subtracting date parts using the DATEADD() T-SQL system function. This week we see how to calculate the difference between two date-time values using DATEDIFF() and DATEDIFF_BIG(). The syntax…
Dates and Times in SQL Server: DATEADD()
We are now in the home stretch of the long-running series about dates and times in SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. This week we look at one of my favourite T-SQL functions when it…
Dates and Times in SQL Server: DATENAME()
Last time we looked at DATEPART(). This post is all about the DATENAME() function. So many similarities There are many similarities between DATEPART and DATENAME. Where DATEPART returns the date or time part as an…
Dates and Times in SQL Server: DATEPART()
In my previous posts in this series we’ve seen reference to Transact-SQL (T-SQL) functions that are used to get the specific part of a date and/or time (year, month, day, hour, minute, second, etc.). This…
Dates and Times in SQL Server: more functions you should never use
Previously we looked at four built-in functions to get the current date and time in SQL Server and Azure SQL Database using Transact-SQL (T-SQL). We identified that out of the options provided, SYSUTCDATETIME() is the…
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 of data types. It has nothing to do with date…
Dates and Times in SQL Server: T-SQL functions to get the current date and time
We have come on quite a journey so far. SQL Server and Azure SQL Database provide date and time data types to help you design the best possible database. You can read more about that…
Dates and Times in SQL Server: the science of time redux
Last time, we began an in-depth look at how time is measured. This post continues our journey. If any of you are students of Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity, this might seem familiar.…
Dates and Times in SQL Server: the science of time
Now that we have covered the various date and time data types (see the post from last time) in SQL Server and Azure SQL Database, it’s time to review what we know about time itself…
Dates and Times in SQL Server: DATETIMEOFFSET
This post continues our look at date and time data types in SQL Server. SQL Server 2008 introduced new data types to handle dates and times in a more intelligent way than the DATETIME and SMALLDATETIME…
Dates and Times in SQL Server: DATETIME2
This post continues our look at date and time data types in SQL Server. SQL Server 2008 introduced new data types to handle dates and times in a more intelligent way than the DATETIME and SMALLDATETIME…
Dates and Times in SQL Server: TIME
This post continues our look at date and time data types in SQL Server. SQL Server 2008 introduced new data types to handle dates and times in a more intelligent way than the DATETIME and SMALLDATETIME…