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• How many people will be with you during 24HOP?

  - by Rob Farley

  In less than a week, SQLPASS hosts another 24 Hours of PASS event, this time with an array of 24 female speakers (in honour of this month being Women’s History Month). Interestingly, the committee has had a few people ask if there are rules about how the event can be viewed, such as “How many people from any one organisation can watch it?” or “Does it matter if a few people are crowded around the same screen?” From a licensing and marketing perspective, there is value in knowing how many people are watching the event, but there are no restrictions about how the thing is viewed. In fact – if you’re planning to watch any of these events, I want to suggest an idea: Book a meeting room in your office with a projector, and watch 24HOP in there. If you’re planning to have it streaming in the background while you work, obviously this makes life a bit trickier. But if you’re planning to treat it as a training event (a 2-day conference if you like) and block out a bit of time for it (as well you should – there’s going to be some great stuff in there), then why not do it in a way that makes it so that other people can see that you’re watching it, and potentially join you. When an event like this runs, we can see how many different ‘people’ are attending each LiveMeeting session. What we can’t tell is how many actual people there are represented. Jessica Moss spoke to the Adelaide SQL Server User Group a few weeks ago via LiveMeeting, and LiveMeeting told us there were less than a dozen people attending. Really there were at least three times that number, because all the people in the room with me weren’t included. I’d love to imagine that every LiveMeeting attendee represented a crowd in a room, watching a shared screen. So there’s my challenge – don’t let your LiveMeeting session represent just you. Find a way of involving other people. At the very least, you’ll be able to discuss it with them afterwards. Now stick a comment on this post to let me know how many people are going to be joining you. :) If you’re not registered for the event yet, get yourself over to the SQLPASS site and make it happen.

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• Dependency injection with n-tier Entity Framework solution

  - by Matthew

  I am currently designing an n-tier solution which is using Entity Framework 5 (.net 4) as its data access strategy, but am concerned about how to incorporate dependency injection to make it testable / flexible. My current solution layout is as follows (my solution is called Alcatraz): Alcatraz.WebUI: An asp.net webform project, the front end user interface, references projects Alcatraz.Business and Alcatraz.Data.Models. Alcatraz.Business: A class library project, contains the business logic, references projects Alcatraz.Data.Access, Alcatraz.Data.Models Alcatraz.Data.Access: A class library project, houses AlcatrazModel.edmx and AlcatrazEntities DbContext, references projects Alcatraz.Data.Models. Alcatraz.Data.Models: A class library project, contains POCOs for the Alcatraz model, no references. My vision for how this solution would work is the web-ui would instantiate a repository within the business library, this repository would have a dependency (through the constructor) of a connection string (not an AlcatrazEntities instance). The web-ui would know the database connection strings, but not that it was an entity framework connection string. In the Business project: public class InmateRepository : IInmateRepository { private string _connectionString; public InmateRepository(string connectionString) { if (connectionString == null) { throw new ArgumentNullException("connectionString"); } EntityConnectionStringBuilder connectionBuilder = new EntityConnectionStringBuilder(); connectionBuilder.Metadata = "res://*/AlcatrazModel.csdl|res://*/AlcatrazModel.ssdl|res://*/AlcatrazModel.msl"; connectionBuilder.Provider = "System.Data.SqlClient"; connectionBuilder.ProviderConnectionString = connectionString; _connectionString = connectionBuilder.ToString(); } public IQueryable<Inmate> GetAllInmates() { AlcatrazEntities ents = new AlcatrazEntities(_connectionString); return ents.Inmates; } } In the Web UI: IInmateRepository inmateRepo = new InmateRepository(@"data source=MATTHEW-PC\SQLEXPRESS;initial catalog=Alcatraz;integrated security=True;"); List<Inmate> deathRowInmates = inmateRepo.GetAllInmates().Where(i => i.OnDeathRow).ToList(); I have a few related questions about this design. 1) Does this design even make sense in terms of Entity Frameworks capabilities? I heard that Entity framework uses the Unit-of-work pattern already, am I just adding another layer of abstract unnecessarily? 2) I don't want my web-ui to directly communicate with Entity Framework (or even reference it for that matter), I want all database access to go through the business layer as in the future I will have multiple projects using the same business layer (web service, windows application, etc.) and I want to have it easy to maintain / update by having the business logic in one central area. Is this an appropriate way to achieve this? 3) Should the Business layer even contain repositories, or should that be contained within the Access layer? If where they are is alright, is passing a connection string a good dependency to assume? Thanks for taking the time to read!

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• Dynamic meta description and keyword tags for your MasterPages

  - by Aamir Hasan

   Today we're going to look at a technique for dynamically inserting meta tags into your master pages. By taking control of the head tag and inserting your own HtmlMeta you can easily customise these tags.Might have noticed that when you create a new master page in visual studio your <head> tag gets decorated with a runat="server" attribute.Asp.net doesn't add this kind of decoration to any other html tags (although you are free to add it if you want). So what makes the head tag special?By adding the runat="server" you're giving actually converting the control into a HtmlHead control. That doesn't particularly matter for this tutorial other than to note that given a reference to the head control you get all the extras that come with asp.net controls such as access to its controls collection.The HtmlMeta control lets us wrap up <meta> tags via asp.net code. To add a meta description we need to create an instance, set the name property, the content property, and then add it to the head: asp.net using (C#)protected void Page_Init(object sender, EventArgs e){  // Add meta description tag  HtmlMeta metaDescription = new HtmlMeta();  metaDescription.Name = "Description";  metaDescription.Content = "Short, unique and keywords rich page description.";  Page.Header.Controls.Add(metaDescription);   // Add meta keywords tag  HtmlMeta metaKeywords = new HtmlMeta();  metaKeywords.Name = "Keywords";  metaKeywords.Content = "selected,page,keywords";  Page.Header.Controls.Add(metaKeywords);}asp.net ( VB.NET )Protected Sub Page_Init(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Init  ' Add meta description tag  Dim metaDescription As HtmlMeta = New HtmlMeta()  metaDescription.Name = "Description"  metaDescription.Content = "Short, unique and keywords rich page description."  Page.Header.Controls.Add(metaDescription)   ' Add meta keywords tag  Dim metaKeywords As HtmlMeta = New HtmlMeta()  metaKeywords.Name = "Keywords"  metaKeywords.Content = "selected,page,keywords"  Page.Header.Controls.Add(metaKeywords)End Sub

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• Syncing Data with a Server using Silverlight and HTTP Polling Duplex

  - by dwahlin

  Many applications have the need to stay in-sync with data provided by a service. Although web applications typically rely on standard polling techniques to check if data has changed, Silverlight provides several interesting options for keeping an application in-sync that rely on server “push” technologies. A few years back I wrote several blog posts covering different “push” technologies available in Silverlight that rely on sockets or HTTP Polling Duplex. We recently had a project that looked like it could benefit from pushing data from a server to one or more clients so I thought I’d revisit the subject and provide some updates to the original code posted. If you’ve worked with AJAX before in Web applications then you know that until browsers fully support web sockets or other duplex (bi-directional communication) technologies that it’s difficult to keep applications in-sync with a server without relying on polling. The problem with polling is that you have to check for changes on the server on a timed-basis which can often be wasteful and take up unnecessary resources. With server “push” technologies, data can be pushed from the server to the client as it changes. Once the data is received, the client can update the user interface as appropriate. Using “push” technologies allows the client to listen for changes from the data but stay 100% focused on client activities as opposed to worrying about polling and asking the server if anything has changed. Silverlight provides several options for pushing data from a server to a client including sockets, TCP bindings and HTTP Polling Duplex.  Each has its own strengths and weaknesses as far as performance and setup work with HTTP Polling Duplex arguably being the easiest to setup and get going.  In this article I’ll demonstrate how HTTP Polling Duplex can be used in Silverlight 4 applications to push data and show how you can create a WCF server that provides an HTTP Polling Duplex binding that a Silverlight client can consume.   What is HTTP Polling Duplex? Technologies that allow data to be pushed from a server to a client rely on duplex functionality. Duplex (or bi-directional) communication allows data to be passed in both directions.  A client can call a service and the server can call the client. HTTP Polling Duplex (as its name implies) allows a server to communicate with a client without forcing the client to constantly poll the server. It has the benefit of being able to run on port 80 making setup a breeze compared to the other options which require specific ports to be used and cross-domain policy files to be exposed on port 943 (as with sockets and TCP bindings). Having said that, if you’re looking for the best speed possible then sockets and TCP bindings are the way to go. But, they’re not the only game in town when it comes to duplex communication. The first time I heard about HTTP Polling Duplex (initially available in Silverlight 2) I wasn’t exactly sure how it was any better than standard polling used in AJAX applications. I read the Silverlight SDK, looked at various resources and generally found the following definition unhelpful as far as understanding the actual benefits that HTTP Polling Duplex provided: "The Silverlight client periodically polls the service on the network layer, and checks for any new messages that the service wants to send on the callback channel. The service queues all messages sent on the client callback channel and delivers them to the client when the client polls the service." Although the previous definition explained the overall process, it sounded as if standard polling was used. Fortunately, Microsoft’s Scott Guthrie provided me with a more clear definition several years back that explains the benefits provided by HTTP Polling Duplex quite well (used with his permission): "The [HTTP Polling Duplex] duplex support does use polling in the background to implement notifications – although the way it does it is different than manual polling. It initiates a network request, and then the request is effectively “put to sleep” waiting for the server to respond (it doesn’t come back immediately). The server then keeps the connection open but not active until it has something to send back (or the connection times out after 90 seconds – at which point the duplex client will connect again and wait). This way you are avoiding hitting the server repeatedly – but still get an immediate response when there is data to send." After hearing Scott’s definition the light bulb went on and it all made sense. A client makes a request to a server to check for changes, but instead of the request returning immediately, it parks itself on the server and waits for data. It’s kind of like waiting to pick up a pizza at the store. Instead of calling the store over and over to check the status, you sit in the store and wait until the pizza (the request data) is ready. Once it’s ready you take it back home (to the client). This technique provides a lot of efficiency gains over standard polling techniques even though it does use some polling of its own as a request is initially made from a client to a server. So how do you implement HTTP Polling Duplex in your Silverlight applications? Let’s take a look at the process by starting with the server. Creating an HTTP Polling Duplex WCF Service Creating a WCF service that exposes an HTTP Polling Duplex binding is straightforward as far as coding goes. Add some one way operations into an interface, create a client callback interface and you’re ready to go. The most challenging part comes into play when configuring the service to properly support the necessary binding and that’s more of a cut and paste operation once you know the configuration code to use. To create an HTTP Polling Duplex service you’ll need to expose server-side and client-side interfaces and reference the System.ServiceModel.PollingDuplex assembly (located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v4.0\Libraries\Server on my machine) in the server project. For the demo application I upgraded a basketball simulation service to support the latest polling duplex assemblies. The service simulates a simple basketball game using a Game class and pushes information about the game such as score, fouls, shots and more to the client as the game changes over time. Before jumping too far into the game push service, it’s important to discuss two interfaces used by the service to communicate in a bi-directional manner. The first is called IGameStreamService and defines the methods/operations that the client can call on the server (see Listing 1). The second is IGameStreamClient which defines the callback methods that a server can use to communicate with a client (see Listing 2).   [ServiceContract(Namespace = "Silverlight", CallbackContract = typeof(IGameStreamClient))] public interface IGameStreamService { [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true)] void GetTeamData(); } Listing 1. The IGameStreamService interface defines server operations that can be called on the server.   [ServiceContract] public interface IGameStreamClient { [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true)] void ReceiveTeamData(List<Team> teamData); [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true, AsyncPattern=true)] IAsyncResult BeginReceiveGameData(GameData gameData, AsyncCallback callback, object state); void EndReceiveGameData(IAsyncResult result); } Listing 2. The IGameStreamClient interfaces defines client operations that a server can call.   The IGameStreamService interface is decorated with the standard ServiceContract attribute but also contains a value for the CallbackContract property.  This property is used to define the interface that the client will expose (IGameStreamClient in this example) and use to receive data pushed from the service. Notice that each OperationContract attribute in both interfaces sets the IsOneWay property to true. This means that the operation can be called and passed data as appropriate, however, no data will be passed back. Instead, data will be pushed back to the client as it’s available.  Looking through the IGameStreamService interface you can see that the client can request team data whereas the IGameStreamClient interface allows team and game data to be received by the client. One interesting point about the IGameStreamClient interface is the inclusion of the AsyncPattern property on the BeginReceiveGameData operation. I initially created this operation as a standard one way operation and it worked most of the time. However, as I disconnected clients and reconnected new ones game data wasn’t being passed properly. After researching the problem more I realized that because the service could take up to 7 seconds to return game data, things were getting hung up. By setting the AsyncPattern property to true on the BeginReceivedGameData operation and providing a corresponding EndReceiveGameData operation I was able to get around this problem and get everything running properly. I’ll provide more details on the implementation of these two methods later in this post. Once the interfaces were created I moved on to the game service class. The first order of business was to create a class that implemented the IGameStreamService interface. Since the service can be used by multiple clients wanting game data I added the ServiceBehavior attribute to the class definition so that I could set its InstanceContextMode to InstanceContextMode.Single (in effect creating a Singleton service object). Listing 3 shows the game service class as well as its fields and constructor.   [ServiceBehavior(ConcurrencyMode = ConcurrencyMode.Multiple, InstanceContextMode = InstanceContextMode.Single)] public class GameStreamService : IGameStreamService { object _Key = new object(); Game _Game = null; Timer _Timer = null; Random _Random = null; Dictionary<string, IGameStreamClient> _ClientCallbacks = new Dictionary<string, IGameStreamClient>(); static AsyncCallback _ReceiveGameDataCompleted = new AsyncCallback(ReceiveGameDataCompleted); public GameStreamService() { _Game = new Game(); _Timer = new Timer { Enabled = false, Interval = 2000, AutoReset = true }; _Timer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(_Timer_Elapsed); _Timer.Start(); _Random = new Random(); }} Listing 3. The GameStreamService implements the IGameStreamService interface which defines a callback contract that allows the service class to push data back to the client. By implementing the IGameStreamService interface, GameStreamService must supply a GetTeamData() method which is responsible for supplying information about the teams that are playing as well as individual players.  GetTeamData() also acts as a client subscription method that tracks clients wanting to receive game data.  Listing 4 shows the GetTeamData() method. public void GetTeamData() { //Get client callback channel var context = OperationContext.Current; var sessionID = context.SessionId; var currClient = context.GetCallbackChannel<IGameStreamClient>(); context.Channel.Faulted += Disconnect; context.Channel.Closed += Disconnect; IGameStreamClient client; if (!_ClientCallbacks.TryGetValue(sessionID, out client)) { lock (_Key) { _ClientCallbacks[sessionID] = currClient; } } currClient.ReceiveTeamData(_Game.GetTeamData()); //Start timer which when fired sends updated score information to client if (!_Timer.Enabled) { _Timer.Enabled = true; } } Listing 4. The GetTeamData() method subscribes a given client to the game service and returns. The key the line of code in the GetTeamData() method is the call to GetCallbackChannel<IGameStreamClient>().  This method is responsible for accessing the calling client’s callback channel. The callback channel is defined by the IGameStreamClient interface shown earlier in Listing 2 and used by the server to communicate with the client. Before passing team data back to the client, GetTeamData() grabs the client’s session ID and checks if it already exists in the _ClientCallbacks dictionary object used to track clients wanting callbacks from the server. If the client doesn’t exist it adds it into the collection. It then pushes team data from the Game class back to the client by calling ReceiveTeamData().  Since the service simulates a basketball game, a timer is then started if it’s not already enabled which is then used to randomly send data to the client. When the timer fires, game data is pushed down to the client. Listing 5 shows the _Timer_Elapsed() method that is called when the timer fires as well as the SendGameData() method used to send data to the client. void _Timer_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e) { int interval = _Random.Next(3000, 7000); lock (_Key) { _Timer.Interval = interval; _Timer.Enabled = false; } SendGameData(_Game.GetGameData()); } private void SendGameData(GameData gameData) { var cbs = _ClientCallbacks.Where(cb => ((IContextChannel)cb.Value).State == CommunicationState.Opened); for (int i = 0; i < cbs.Count(); i++) { var cb = cbs.ElementAt(i).Value; try { cb.BeginReceiveGameData(gameData, _ReceiveGameDataCompleted, cb); } catch (TimeoutException texp) { //Log timeout error } catch (CommunicationException cexp) { //Log communication error } } lock (_Key) _Timer.Enabled = true; } private static void ReceiveGameDataCompleted(IAsyncResult result) { try { ((IGameStreamClient)(result.AsyncState)).EndReceiveGameData(result); } catch (CommunicationException) { // empty } catch (TimeoutException) { // empty } } LIsting 5. _Timer_Elapsed is used to simulate time in a basketball game. When _Timer_Elapsed() fires the SendGameData() method is called which iterates through the clients wanting to be notified of changes. As each client is identified, their respective BeginReceiveGameData() method is called which ultimately pushes game data down to the client. Recall that this method was defined in the client callback interface named IGameStreamClient shown earlier in Listing 2. Notice that BeginReceiveGameData() accepts _ReceiveGameDataCompleted as its second parameter (an AsyncCallback delegate defined in the service class) and passes the client callback as the third parameter. The initial version of the sample application had a standard ReceiveGameData() method in the client callback interface. However, sometimes the client callbacks would work properly and sometimes they wouldn’t which was a little baffling at first glance. After some investigation I realized that I needed to implement an asynchronous pattern for client callbacks to work properly since 3 – 7 second delays are occurring as a result of the timer. Once I added the BeginReceiveGameData() and ReceiveGameDataCompleted() methods everything worked properly since each call was handled in an asynchronous manner. The final task that had to be completed to get the server working properly with HTTP Polling Duplex was adding configuration code into web.config. In the interest of brevity I won’t post all of the code here since the sample application includes everything you need. However, Listing 6 shows the key configuration code to handle creating a custom binding named pollingDuplexBinding and associate it with the service’s endpoint.   <bindings> <customBinding> <binding name="pollingDuplexBinding"> <binaryMessageEncoding /> <pollingDuplex maxPendingSessions="2147483647" maxPendingMessagesPerSession="2147483647" inactivityTimeout="02:00:00" serverPollTimeout="00:05:00"/> <httpTransport /> </binding> </customBinding> </bindings> <services> <service name="GameService.GameStreamService" behaviorConfiguration="GameStreamServiceBehavior"> <endpoint address="" binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="pollingDuplexBinding" contract="GameService.IGameStreamService"/> <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" /> </service> </services>   Listing 6. Configuring an HTTP Polling Duplex binding in web.config and associating an endpoint with it. Calling the Service and Receiving “Pushed” Data Calling the service and handling data that is pushed from the server is a simple and straightforward process in Silverlight. Since the service is configured with a MEX endpoint and exposes a WSDL file, you can right-click on the Silverlight project and select the standard Add Service Reference item. After the web service proxy is created you may notice that the ServiceReferences.ClientConfig file only contains an empty configuration element instead of the normal configuration elements created when creating a standard WCF proxy. You can certainly update the file if you want to read from it at runtime but for the sample application I fed the service URI directly to the service proxy as shown next: var address = new EndpointAddress("http://localhost.:5661/GameStreamService.svc"); var binding = new PollingDuplexHttpBinding(); _Proxy = new GameStreamServiceClient(binding, address); _Proxy.ReceiveTeamDataReceived += _Proxy_ReceiveTeamDataReceived; _Proxy.ReceiveGameDataReceived += _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived; _Proxy.GetTeamDataAsync(); This code creates the proxy and passes the endpoint address and binding to use to its constructor. It then wires the different receive events to callback methods and calls GetTeamDataAsync().  Calling GetTeamDataAsync() causes the server to store the client in the server-side dictionary collection mentioned earlier so that it can receive data that is pushed.  As the server-side timer fires and game data is pushed to the client, the user interface is updated as shown in Listing 7. Listing 8 shows the _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived() method responsible for handling the data and calling UpdateGameData() to process it.   Listing 7. The Silverlight interface. Game data is pushed from the server to the client using HTTP Polling Duplex. void _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived(object sender, ReceiveGameDataReceivedEventArgs e) { UpdateGameData(e.gameData); } private void UpdateGameData(GameData gameData) { //Update Score this.tbTeam1Score.Text = gameData.Team1Score.ToString(); this.tbTeam2Score.Text = gameData.Team2Score.ToString(); //Update ball visibility if (gameData.Action != ActionsEnum.Foul) { if (tbTeam1.Text == gameData.TeamOnOffense) { AnimateBall(this.BB1, this.BB2); } else //Team 2 { AnimateBall(this.BB2, this.BB1); } } if (this.lbActions.Items.Count > 9) this.lbActions.Items.Clear(); this.lbActions.Items.Add(gameData.LastAction); if (this.lbActions.Visibility == Visibility.Collapsed) this.lbActions.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; } private void AnimateBall(Image onBall, Image offBall) { this.FadeIn.Stop(); Storyboard.SetTarget(this.FadeInAnimation, onBall); Storyboard.SetTarget(this.FadeOutAnimation, offBall); this.FadeIn.Begin(); } Listing 8. As the server pushes game data, the client’s _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived() method is called to process the data. In a real-life application I’d go with a ViewModel class to handle retrieving team data, setup data bindings and handle data that is pushed from the server. However, for the sample application I wanted to focus on HTTP Polling Duplex and keep things as simple as possible.   Summary Silverlight supports three options when duplex communication is required in an application including TCP bindins, sockets and HTTP Polling Duplex. In this post you’ve seen how HTTP Polling Duplex interfaces can be created and implemented on the server as well as how they can be consumed by a Silverlight client. HTTP Polling Duplex provides a nice way to “push” data from a server while still allowing the data to flow over port 80 or another port of your choice.   Sample Application Download

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• SQL – Building a High Traffic, Profitable Blog – A Unique Gift on Author’s Birthday

  - by Pinal Dave

  Every July 30th, I like to do something new. It is my birthday and I like to give gifts to everyone this day. Last year, at this time I had written an article A Year Older and 3 SQL Server Books and 3 Video Courses – 33. I had written a total of 3 books by that time and had published total of  3 Pluralsight courses. When I look back the year, I feel that I gave my best to last year. Sine Last July 30th, I have written 6 more books and 5 more video courses. The total is now 9 books and 8 video courses. It seems that I have been producing one new book or course every month since last July. Building a High Traffic, Profitable Blog Out of my 8 courses my favorite course is my latest course at Pluralsight. This course is about how to build a high traffic blog and monetize it. I have been blogging for over 7 years and there have been many hurdles and roadblocks but I have never stopped blogging any single day. There have been many instances when I felt I should just hit delete and remove my entire blog from the web but fortunately I had courage to stand by on my decisions. Well at the end, I kept on fighting through the difficult time and kept on blogging. Every day there was a lesson to learn and every day there was an issue to resolve. I never gave up and kept on building new content. Today after 7 years, when I look back there are many stories to tell. It was impossible to write down the stories so I decided to build a course based on my experience. In this course, I share all the best tricks to build a high traffic, profitable blog. When we talk about profit, people often talk about money but the reality is that profit is much bigger word than money. There are many different ways one can profit from their own blog. In this course, I discuss about all different ways about how you can be profitable by building a high traffic blog. I believe this course is for everybody who aspire to build a website or blog which gives them a profit.  Here are the major topics based out of this course. Introduction Techniques to Engage Blog Readers Social Media – Social Sharing and Social Networking Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Monetizing a Blog Frequently Asked Questions Checklists Personally I believe this is the best gift I can give to all of you my friends. Build a successful high traffic blog and monetize it. Here is the list of the all of my video courses and here is the list of all of the books. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: About Me, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Blogging

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• SQL SERVER – Detecting Leap Year in T-SQL using SQL Server 2012 – IIF, EOMONTH and CONCAT Function

  - by pinaldave

  Note: Tomorrow is February 29th. This blog post is dedicated to coming tomorrow – a special day :) Subu: “How can I find leap year in using SQL Server 2012?“ Pinal: “Are you asking me how to year 2012 is leap year using T-SQL – search online and you will find many example of the same.” Subu: “No. I am asking – How can I find leap year in using SQL Server 2012?“ Pinal: “Oh so you are asking – How can I find leap year in using SQL Server 2012?“ Subu: “Yeah - How can I find leap year in using SQL Server 2012?“ Pinal: “Let me do that for you – How can you find leap year in using SQL Server 2012?“ Indeed a fun conversation. Honestly, only reason I pasted our conversation here is – it was fun. What he was asking is that how to do it using new functions introduced in SQL Server 2012. Here is the article I have written which introduces all the new functions in SQL Server 2012 Summary of All the Analytic Functions – MSDN and SQLAuthority and 14 New Functions – A Quick Guide. There are many functions written to figure out to figure out if any year is Leap Year or not. The same I have written using T-SQL function over here. CREATE FUNCTION dbo.IsLeapYear (@year INT) RETURNS INT AS BEGIN RETURN(IIF(DATEPART(dd,(EOMONTH(CONCAT(@year,'0201')))) = 29,1,0)) END GO What I really like is that I was able to use three newly introduced function in SQL Server 2012 in above script. You can read more about them here. IIF, EOMONTH and CONCAT. You can validate above query by running following script. SELECT dbo.IsLeapYear('2011') 'IsLeapYear'; SELECT dbo.IsLeapYear('2012') 'IsLeapYear'; GO You will get result 1 if the year is leap year and 0 if year is not leap year. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Alert visualization recipe: Get out your blender, drop in some sp_send_dbmail, Google Charts API, add your favorite colors and sprinkle with html. Blend till it’s smooth and looks pretty enough to taste.

  - by Maria Zakourdaev

    I really like database monitoring. My email inbox have a constant flow of different types of alerts coming from our production servers with all kinds of information, sometimes more useful and sometimes less useful. Usually database alerts look really simple, it’s usually a plain text email saying “Prod1 Database data file on Server X is 80% used. You’d better grow it manually before some query triggers the AutoGrowth process”. Imagine you could have received email like the one below.  In addition to the alert description it could have also included the the database file growth chart over the past 6 months. Wouldn’t it give you much more information whether the data growth is natural or extreme? That’s truly what data visualization is for. Believe it or not, I have sent the graph below from SQL Server stored procedure without buying any additional data monitoring/visualization tool.   Would you like to visualize your database alerts like I do? Then like myself, you’d love the Google Charts. All you need to know is a little HTML and have a mail profile configured on your SQL Server instance regardless of the SQL Server version. First of all, I hope you know that the sp_send_dbmail procedure has a great parameter @body_format = ‘HTML’, which allows us to send rich and colorful messages instead of boring black and white ones. All that we need is to dynamically create HTML code. This is how, for instance, you can create a table and populate it with some data: DECLARE @html varchar(max) SET @html = '<html>' + '<H3><font id="Text" style='color: Green;'>Top Databases: </H3>' + '<table border="1" bordercolor="#3300FF" style='background-color:#DDF8CC' width='70%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='3'>' + '<tr><font color="Green"><th>Database Name</th><th>Size</th><th>Physical Name</th></tr>' + CAST( (SELECT TOP 10                             td = name,'',                             td = size * 8/1024 ,'',                             td = physical_name              FROM sys.master_files               ORDER BY size DESC             FOR XML PATH ('tr'),TYPE ) AS VARCHAR(MAX)) + '</table>' EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail @recipients = '[email protected]', @subject ='Top databases', @body = @html, @body_format = 'HTML' This is the result:   If you want to add more visualization effects, you can use Google Charts Tools https://google-developers.appspot.com/chart/interactive/docs/index which is a free and rich library of data visualization charts, they’re also easy to populate and embed. There are two versions of the Google Charts Image based charts: https://google-developers.appspot.com/chart/image/docs/gallery/chart_gall This is an old version, it’s officially deprecated although it will be up for a next few years or so. I really enjoy using this one because it can be viewed within the email body. For mobile devices you need to change the “Load remote images” property in your email application configuration.           Charts based on JavaScript classes: https://google-developers.appspot.com/chart/interactive/docs/gallery This API is newer, with rich and highly interactive charts, and it’s much more easier to understand and configure. The only downside of it is that they cannot be viewed within the email body. Outlook, Gmail and many other email clients, as part of their security policy, do not run any JavaScript that’s placed within the email body. However, you can still enjoy this API by sending the report as an email attachment. Here is an example of the old version of Google Charts API, sending the same top databases report as in the previous example but instead of a simple table, this script is using a pie chart right from  the T-SQL code DECLARE @html  varchar(8000) DECLARE @Series  varchar(800),@Labels  varchar(8000),@Legend  varchar(8000);     SET @Series = ''; SET @Labels = ''; SET @Legend = ''; SELECT TOP 5 @Series = @Series + CAST(size * 8/1024 as varchar) + ',',                         @Labels = @Labels +CAST(size * 8/1024 as varchar) + 'MB'+'|',                         @Legend = @Legend + name + '|' FROM sys.master_files ORDER BY size DESC SELECT @Series = SUBSTRING(@Series,1,LEN(@Series)-1),         @Labels = SUBSTRING(@Labels,1,LEN(@Labels)-1),         @Legend = SUBSTRING(@Legend,1,LEN(@Legend)-1) SET @html =   '<H3><font color="Green"> '+@@ServerName+' top 5 databases : </H3>'+    '<br>'+    '<img src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?'+    'chf=bg,s,DDF8CC&'+    'cht=p&'+    'chs=400x200&'+    'chco=3072F3|7777CC|FF9900|FF0000|4A8C26&'+    'chd=t:'+@Series+'&'+    'chl='+@Labels+'&'+    'chma=0,0,0,0&'+    'chdl='+@Legend+'&'+    'chdlp=b"'+    'alt="'+@@ServerName+' top 5 databases" />'              EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail @recipients = '[email protected]',                             @subject = 'Top databases',                             @body = @html,                             @body_format = 'HTML' This is what you get. Isn’t it great? Chart parameters reference: chf     Gradient fill  bg - backgroud ; s- solid cht     chart type  ( p - pie) chs        chart size width/height chco    series colors chd        chart data string        1,2,3,2 chl        pir chart labels        a|b|c|d chma    chart margins chdl    chart legend            a|b|c|d chdlp    chart legend text        b - bottom of chart   Line graph implementation is also really easy and powerful DECLARE @html varchar(max) DECLARE @Series varchar(max) DECLARE @HourList varchar(max) SET @Series = ''; SET @HourList = ''; SELECT @HourList = @HourList + SUBSTRING(CONVERT(varchar(13),last_execution_time,121), 12,2)  + '|' ,              @Series = @Series + CAST( COUNT(1) as varchar) + ',' FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats s     CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(plan_handle) t WHERE last_execution_time > = getdate()-1 GROUP BY CONVERT(varchar(13),last_execution_time,121) ORDER BY CONVERT(varchar(13),last_execution_time,121) SET @Series = SUBSTRING(@Series,1,LEN(@Series)-1) SET @html = '<img src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?'+ 'chco=CA3D05,87CEEB&'+ 'chd=t:'+@Series+'&'+ 'chds=1,350&'+ 'chdl= Proc executions from cache&'+ 'chf=bg,s,1F1D1D|c,lg,0,363433,1.0,2E2B2A,0.0&'+ 'chg=25.0,25.0,3,2&'+ 'chls=3|3&'+ 'chm=d,CA3D05,0,-1,12,0|d,FFFFFF,0,-1,8,0|d,87CEEB,1,-1,12,0|d,FFFFFF,1,-1,8,0&'+ 'chs=600x450&'+ 'cht=lc&'+ 'chts=FFFFFF,14&'+ 'chtt=Executions for from' +(SELECT CONVERT(varchar(16),min(last_execution_time),121)          FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats          WHERE last_execution_time > = getdate()-1) +' till '+ +(SELECT CONVERT(varchar(16),max(last_execution_time),121)     FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats) + '&'+ 'chxp=1,50.0|4,50.0&'+ 'chxs=0,FFFFFF,12,0|1,FFFFFF,12,0|2,FFFFFF,12,0|3,FFFFFF,12,0|4,FFFFFF,14,0&'+ 'chxt=y,y,x,x,x&'+ 'chxl=0:|1|350|1:|N|2:|'+@HourList+'3:|Hour&'+ 'chma=55,120,0,0" alt="" />' EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail @recipients = '[email protected]', @subject ='Daily number of executions', @body = @html, @body_format = 'HTML' Chart parameters reference: chco    series colors chd        series data chds    scale format chdl    chart legend chf        background fills chg        grid line chls    line style chm        line fill chs        chart size cht        chart type chts    chart style chtt    chart title chxp    axis label positions chxs    axis label styles chxt    axis tick mark styles chxl    axis labels chma    chart margins If you don’t mind to get your charts as an email attachment, you can enjoy the Java based Google Charts which are even easier to configure, and have much more advanced graphics. In the example below, the sp_send_email procedure uses the parameter @query which will be executed at the time that sp_send_dbemail is executed and the HTML result of this execution will be attached to the email. DECLARE @html varchar(max),@query varchar(max) DECLARE @SeriesDBusers  varchar(800);     SET @SeriesDBusers = ''; SELECT @SeriesDBusers = @SeriesDBusers +  ' ["'+DB_NAME(r.database_id) +'", ' +cast(count(1) as varchar)+'],' FROM sys.dm_exec_requests r GROUP BY DB_NAME(database_id) ORDER BY count(1) desc; SET @SeriesDBusers = SUBSTRING(@SeriesDBusers,1,LEN(@SeriesDBusers)-1) SET @query = ' PRINT '' <html>   <head>     <script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>     <script type="text/javascript">       google.load("visualization", "1", {packages:["corechart"]});        google.setOnLoadCallback(drawChart);       function drawChart() {                      var data = google.visualization.arrayToDataTable([                        ["Database Name", "Active users"],                        '+@SeriesDBusers+'                      ]);                        var options = {                        title: "Active users",                        pieSliceText: "value"                      };                        var chart = new google.visualization.PieChart(document.getElementById("chart_div"));                      chart.draw(data, options);       };     </script>   </head>   <body>     <table>     <tr><td>         <div id="chart_div" style='width: 800px; height: 300px;'></div>         </td></tr>     </table>   </body> </html> ''' EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail    @recipients = '[email protected]',    @subject ='Active users',    @body = @html,    @body_format = 'HTML',    @query = @Query,     @attach_query_result_as_file = 1,     @query_attachment_filename = 'Results.htm' After opening the email attachment in the browser you are getting this kind of report: In fact, the above is not only for database alerts. It can be used for applicative reports if you need high levels of customization that you cannot achieve using standard methods like SSRS. If you need more information on how to customize the charts, you can try the following: Image Based Charts wizard https://google-developers.appspot.com/chart/image/docs/chart_wizard  Live Image Charts Playground https://google-developers.appspot.com/chart/image/docs/chart_playground Image Based Charts Parameters List https://google-developers.appspot.com/chart/image/docs/chart_params Java Script Charts Playground https://code.google.com/apis/ajax/playground/?type=visualization Use the above examples as a starting point for your procedures and I’d be more than happy to hear of your implementations of the above techniques. Yours, Maria

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• SQLAuthority News – Social Media Series – YouTube and Movies

  - by pinaldave

  Pinal Dave on Youtube! Some people might not know it, but YouTube is actually more than a place to watch funny cat videos and people singing their favorite pop songs – it’s actually a social media site.  When you are a member of YouTube you can follow people who regularly post videos, post video responses of your own, and even gain a following for your own videos.  I myself was not aware of YouTube’s potential until recently, when I started to make SQL Server in Sixty Seconds videos. YouTube is very different than other types of social media, and a big factor is that anyone can look at videos without being a member.  Unlike other social media sites, like Twitter and Facebook, you have to have an account in order to participate.  But on YouTube you are even more anonymous.  To make and post videos you need an account, but anyone who comes to the site can look at what you’ve made without signing in or leaving any trace of having seen your material.  This makes YouTube very anonymous and hard to track. However, we should not overlook the power of video on the internet.  Over the past few months I have been making SQL Server in Sixty Second videos and have come to love it.  It is very exciting to be able to talk about a subject that mostly I write about, and for many people video is far more accessible and easy to understand.   I have really enjoyed diving into something new, and would love to have more people check out these videos and give me feedback.  You can find me at www.youtube.com/user/pinaldave. I am very excited with all the possibilities on YouTube and it might just be the technology evangelist in me, but I would love for other people to discover how fun and exciting this site can be, too.  Don’t think of it as just a place to find funny videos and waste a few minutes of your time, think of it as a place to learn and interact with interesting people.  Come watch a few of my videos, while you’re there.  Remember, everything is free and there are no contracts to sign, but I hope that you get as excited as I am and join up.  We need more people creating good content on this site! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Social Media

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• Metro: Using Templates

  - by Stephen.Walther

  The goal of this blog post is to describe how templates work in the WinJS library. In particular, you learn how to use a template to display both a single item and an array of items. You also learn how to load a template from an external file. Why use Templates? Imagine that you want to display a list of products in a page. The following code is bad: var products = [ { name: "Tesla", price: 80000 }, { name: "VW Rabbit", price: 200 }, { name: "BMW", price: 60000 } ]; var productsHTML = ""; for (var i = 0; i < products.length; i++) { productsHTML += "<h1>Product Details</h1>" + "<div>Product Name: " + products[i].name + "</div>" + "<div>Product Price: " + products[i].price + "</div>"; } document.getElementById("productContainer").innerHTML = productsHTML; In the code above, an array of products is displayed by creating a for..next loop which loops through each element in the array. A string which represents a list of products is built through concatenation. The code above is a designer’s nightmare. You cannot modify the appearance of the list of products without modifying the JavaScript code. A much better approach is to use a template like this: <div id="productTemplate"> <h1>Product Details</h1> <div> Product Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:name"></span> </div> <div> Product Price: <span data-win-bind="innerText:price"></span> </div> </div> A template is simply a fragment of HTML that contains placeholders. Instead of displaying a list of products by concatenating together a string, you can render a template for each product. Creating a Simple Template Let’s start by using a template to render a single product. The following HTML page contains a template and a placeholder for rendering the template: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- Application1 references --> <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <!-- Product Template --> <div id="productTemplate"> <h1>Product Details</h1> <div> Product Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:name"></span> </div> <div> Product Price: <span data-win-bind="innerText:price"></span> </div> </div> <!-- Place where Product Template is Rendered --> <div id="productContainer"></div> </body> </html> In the page above, the template is defined in a DIV element with the id productTemplate. The contents of the productTemplate are not displayed when the page is opened in the browser. The contents of a template are automatically hidden when you convert the productTemplate into a template in your JavaScript code. Notice that the template uses data-win-bind attributes to display the product name and price properties. You can use both data-win-bind and data-win-bindsource attributes within a template. To learn more about these attributes, see my earlier blog post on WinJS data binding: http://stephenwalther.com/blog/archive/2012/02/26/windows-web-applications-declarative-data-binding.aspx The page above also includes a DIV element named productContainer. The rendered template is added to this element. Here’s the code for the default.js script which creates and renders the template: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { var product = { name: "Tesla", price: 80000 }; var productTemplate = new WinJS.Binding.Template(document.getElementById("productTemplate")); productTemplate.render(product, document.getElementById("productContainer")); } }; app.start(); })(); In the code above, a single product object is created with the following line of code: var product = { name: "Tesla", price: 80000 }; Next, the productTemplate element from the page is converted into an actual WinJS template with the following line of code: var productTemplate = new WinJS.Binding.Template(document.getElementById("productTemplate")); The template is rendered to the templateContainer element with the following line of code: productTemplate.render(product, document.getElementById("productContainer")); The result of this work is that the product details are displayed: Notice that you do not need to call WinJS.Binding.processAll(). The Template render() method takes care of the binding for you. Displaying an Array in a Template If you want to display an array of products using a template then you simply need to create a for..next loop and iterate through the array calling the Template render() method for each element. (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { var products = [ { name: "Tesla", price: 80000 }, { name: "VW Rabbit", price: 200 }, { name: "BMW", price: 60000 } ]; var productTemplate = new WinJS.Binding.Template(document.getElementById("productTemplate")); var productContainer = document.getElementById("productContainer"); var i, product; for (i = 0; i < products.length; i++) { product = products[i]; productTemplate.render(product, productContainer); } } }; app.start(); })(); After each product in the array is rendered with the template, the result is appended to the productContainer element. No changes need to be made to the HTML page discussed in the previous section to display an array of products instead of a single product. The same product template can be used in both scenarios. Rendering an HTML TABLE with a Template When using the WinJS library, you create a template by creating an HTML element in your page. One drawback to this approach of creating templates is that your templates are part of your HTML page. In order for your HTML page to validate, the HTML within your templates must also validate. This means, for example, that you cannot enclose a single HTML table row within a template. The following HTML is invalid because you cannot place a TR element directly within the body of an HTML document:   <!-- Product Template --> <tr> <td data-win-bind="innerText:name"></td> <td data-win-bind="innerText:price"></td> </tr> This template won’t validate because, in a valid HTML5 document, a TR element must appear within a THEAD or TBODY element. Instead, you must create the entire TABLE element in the template. The following HTML page illustrates how you can create a template which contains a TR element: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- Application1 references --> <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <!-- Product Template --> <div id="productTemplate"> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td data-win-bind="innerText:name"></td> <td data-win-bind="innerText:price"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> <!-- Place where Product Template is Rendered --> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Name</th><th>Price</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody id="productContainer"> </tbody> </table> </body> </html>   In the HTML page above, the product template includes TABLE and TBODY elements: <!-- Product Template --> <div id="productTemplate"> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td data-win-bind="innerText:name"></td> <td data-win-bind="innerText:price"></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> We discard these elements when we render the template. The only reason that we include the TABLE and THEAD elements in the template is to make the HTML page validate as valid HTML5 markup. Notice that the productContainer (the target of the template) in the page above is a TBODY element. We want to add the rows rendered by the template to the TBODY element in the page. The productTemplate is rendered in the default.js file: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { var products = [ { name: "Tesla", price: 80000 }, { name: "VW Rabbit", price: 200 }, { name: "BMW", price: 60000 } ]; var productTemplate = new WinJS.Binding.Template(document.getElementById("productTemplate")); var productContainer = document.getElementById("productContainer"); var i, product, row; for (i = 0; i < products.length; i++) { product = products[i]; productTemplate.render(product).then(function (result) { row = WinJS.Utilities.query("tr", result).get(0); productContainer.appendChild(row); }); } } }; app.start(); })(); When the product template is rendered, the TR element is extracted from the rendered template by using the WinJS.Utilities.query() method. Next, only the TR element is added to the productContainer: productTemplate.render(product).then(function (result) { row = WinJS.Utilities.query("tr", result).get(0); productContainer.appendChild(row); }); I discuss the WinJS.Utilities.query() method in depth in a previous blog entry: http://stephenwalther.com/blog/archive/2012/02/23/windows-web-applications-query-selectors.aspx When everything gets rendered, the products are displayed in an HTML table: You can see the actual HTML rendered by looking at the Visual Studio DOM Explorer window:   Loading an External Template Instead of embedding a template in an HTML page, you can place your template in an external HTML file. It makes sense to create a template in an external file when you need to use the same template in multiple pages. For example, you might need to use the same product template in multiple pages in your application. The following HTML page does not contain a template. It only contains a container that will act as a target for the rendered template: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- Application1 references --> <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <!-- Place where Product Template is Rendered --> <div id="productContainer"></div> </body> </html> The template is contained in a separate file located at the path /templates/productTemplate.html:   Here’s the contents of the productTemplate.html file: <!-- Product Template --> <div id="productTemplate"> <h1>Product Details</h1> <div> Product Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:name"></span> </div> <div> Product Price: <span data-win-bind="innerText:price"></span> </div> </div> Notice that the template file only contains the template and not the standard opening and closing HTML elements. It is an HTML fragment. If you prefer, you can include all of the standard opening and closing HTML elements in your external template – these elements get stripped away automatically: <html> <head><title>product template</title></head> <body> <!-- Product Template --> <div id="productTemplate"> <h1>Product Details</h1> <div> Product Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:name"></span> </div> <div> Product Price: <span data-win-bind="innerText:price"></span> </div> </div> </body> </html> Either approach – using a fragment or using a full HTML document  — works fine. Finally, the following default.js file loads the external template, renders the template for each product, and appends the result to the product container: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { var products = [ { name: "Tesla", price: 80000 }, { name: "VW Rabbit", price: 200 }, { name: "BMW", price: 60000 } ]; var productTemplate = new WinJS.Binding.Template(null, { href: "/templates/productTemplate.html" }); var productContainer = document.getElementById("productContainer"); var i, product, row; for (i = 0; i < products.length; i++) { product = products[i]; productTemplate.render(product, productContainer); } } }; app.start(); })(); The path to the external template is passed to the constructor for the Template class as one of the options: var productTemplate = new WinJS.Binding.Template(null, {href:"/templates/productTemplate.html"}); When a template is contained in a page then you use the first parameter of the WinJS.Binding.Template constructor to represent the template – instead of null, you pass the element which contains the template. When a template is located in an external file, you pass the href for the file as part of the second parameter for the WinJS.Binding.Template constructor. Summary The goal of this blog entry was to describe how you can use WinJS templates to render either a single item or an array of items to a page. We also explored two advanced topics. You learned how to render an HTML table by extracting the TR element from a template. You also learned how to place a template in an external file.

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• SQL SERVER – Automation Process Good or Ugly

  - by pinaldave

  This blog post is written in response to T-SQL Tuesday hosted by SQL Server Insane Asylum. The idea of this post really caught my attention. Automation – something getting itself done after the initial programming, is my understanding of the subject. The very next thought was – is it good or evil? The reality is there is no right answer. However, what if we quickly note a few things, then I would like to request your help to complete this post. We will start with the positive parts in SQL Server where automation happens. The Good If I start thinking of SQL Server and Automation the very first thing that comes to my mind is SQL Agent, which runs various jobs. Once I configure any task or job, it runs fine (till something goes wrong!). Well, automation has its own advantages. We all have used SQL Agent for so many things – backup, various validation jobs, maintenance jobs and numerous other things. What other kinds of automation tasks do you run in your database server? The Ugly This part is very interesting, because it can get really ugly(!). During my career I have found so many bad automation agent jobs. Client had an agent job where he was dropping the clean buffers every hour Client using database mail to send regular emails instead of necessary alert related emails The best one – A client used new Missing Index and Unused Index scripts in SQL Agent Job to follow suggestions 100%. Believe me, I have never seen such a badly performing and hard to optimize database. (I ended up dropping all non-clustered indexes on the development server and ran production workload on the development server again, then configured with optimal indexes). Shrinking database is performance killer. It should never be automated. SQL SERVER – Shrinking Database is Bad – Increases Fragmentation – Reduces Performance The one I hate the most is AutoShrink Database. It has given me hard time in my career quite a few times. SQL SERVER – SHRINKDATABASE For Every Database in the SQL Server Automation is necessary but common sense is a must when creating automation. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• Retrieving only the first record or record at a certain index in LINQ

  - by vik20000in

  While working with data it’s not always required that we fetch all the records. Many a times we only need to fetch the first record, or some records in some index, in the record set. With LINQ we can get the desired record very easily with the help of the provided element operators. Simple get the first record. If you want only the first record in record set we can use the first method [Note that this can also be done easily done with the help of the take method by providing the value as one].     List<Product> products = GetProductList();      Product product12 = (         from prod in products         where prod.ProductID == 12         select prod)         .First();   We can also very easily put some condition on which first record to be fetched.     string[] strings = { "zero", "one", "two", "three", "four", "five", "six", "seven", "eight", "nine" };     string startsWithO = strings.First(s => s[0] == 'o');  In the above example the result would be “one” because that is the first record starting with “o”.  Also the fact that there will be chances that there are no value returned in the result set. When we know such possibilities we can use the FirstorDefault() method to return the first record or incase there are no records get the default value.        int[] numbers = {};     int firstNumOrDefault = numbers.FirstOrDefault();  In case we do not want the first record but the second or the third or any other later record then we can use the ElementAt() method. In the ElementAt() method we need to pass the index number for which we want the record and we will receive the result for that element.      int[] numbers = { 5, 4, 1, 3, 9, 8, 6, 7, 2, 0 };      int fourthLowNum = (         from num in numbers         where num > 5         select num )         .ElementAt(1); Vikram

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• SQL SERVER – PREEMPTIVE and Non-PREEMPTIVE – Wait Type – Day 19 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  In this blog post, we are going to talk about a very interesting subject. I often get questions related to SQL Server 2008 Book-Online about various Preemptive wait types. I got a few questions asking what these wait types are and how they could be interpreted. To get current wait types of the system, you can read this article and run the script: SQL SERVER – DMV – sys.dm_os_waiting_tasks and sys.dm_exec_requests – Wait Type – Day 4 of 28. Before we continue understanding them, let us study first what PREEMPTIVE and Non-PREEMPTIVE waits in SQL Server mean. PREEMPTIVE: Simply put, this wait means non-cooperative. While SQL Server is executing a task, the Operating System (OS) interrupts it. This leads to SQL Server to involuntarily give up the execution for other higher priority tasks. This is not good for SQL Server as it is a particular external process which makes SQL Server to yield. This kind of wait can reduce the performance drastically and needs to be investigated properly. Non-PREEMPTIVE: In simple terms, this wait means cooperative. SQL Server manages the scheduling of the threads. When SQL Server manages the scheduling instead of the OS, it makes sure its own priority. In this case, SQL Server decides the priority and one thread yields to another thread voluntarily. In the earlier version of SQL Server, there was no preemptive wait types mentioned and the associated task status with them was marked as suspended. In SQL Server 2005, preemptive wait types were not listed as well, but their associated task status was marked as running. In SQL Server 2008, preemptive wait types are properly listed and their associated task status is also marked as running. Now, SQL Server is in Non-Preemptive mode by default and it works fine. When CLR, extended Stored Procedures and other external components run, they run in Preemptive mode, leading to the creation of these wait types. There are a wide variety of preemptive wait types. If you see consistent high value in the Preemptive wait types, I strongly suggest that you look into the wait type and try to know the root cause. If you are still not sure, you can send me an email or leave a comment about it and I will do my best to help you reduce this wait type. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• Mac OS X roaming profile from Samba with OpenLDAP backend on Ubuntu 11.10

  - by Sam Hammamy

  I have been battling for a week now to get my Mac (Mountain Lion) to authenticate on my home network's OpenLDAP and Samba. From several sources, like the Ubuntu community docs, and other blogs, and after a hell of a lot of trial and error and piecing things together, I have created a samba.ldif that will pass the smbldap-populate when combined with apple.ldif and I have a fully functional OpenLDAP server and a Samba PDC that uses LDAP to authenticate the OS X Machine. The problem is that when I login, the home directory is not created or pulled from the server. I get the following in system.log Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local SecurityAgent[265]: User info context values set for sam Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Got user: sam Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Got ruser: (null) Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Got service: authorization Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in od_principal_for_user(): no authauth availale for user. Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in od_principal_for_user(): failed: 7 Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Failed to determine Kerberos principal name. Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Done cleanup3 Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): Kerberos 5 refuses you Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in pam_sm_authenticate(): pam_sm_authenticate: ntlm Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in pam_sm_acct_mgmt(): OpenDirectory - Membership cache TTL set to 1800. Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in od_record_check_pwpolicy(): retval: 0 Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in pam_sm_setcred(): Establishing credentials Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in pam_sm_setcred(): Got user: sam Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in pam_sm_setcred(): Context initialised Sep 21 06:09:15 Sams-MacBook-Pro.local authorizationhost[270]: in pam_sm_setcred(): pam_sm_setcred: ntlm user sam doesn't have auth authority All that's great and good and I authenticate. Then I get CFPreferences: user home directory for user kCFPreferencesCurrentUser at /Network/Servers/172.17.148.186/home/sam is unavailable. User domains will be volatile. Failed looking up user domain root; url='file://localhost/Network/Servers/172.17.148.186/home/sam/' path=/Network/Servers/172.17.148.186/home/sam/ err=-43 uid=9000 euid=9000 If you're wondering where /Network/Servers/IP/home/sam comes from, it's from a couple of blogs that said the OpenLDAP attribute apple-user-homeDirectory should have that value and the NFSHomeDirectory on the mac should point to apple-user-homeDirectory I also set the attr apple-user-homeurl to <home_dir><url>smb://172.17.148.186/sam/</url><path></path></home_dir> which I found on this forum. Any help is appreciated, because I'm banging my head against the wall at this point. By the way, I intend to create a blog on my vps just for this, and create an install script in python that people can download so no one has to go through what I've had to go through this week :) After some sleep I am going to try to login from a windows machine and report back here. Thanks Sam

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• SQL SERVER – SQL in Sixty Seconds – Last Three Episodes – Need Your Opinion

  - by Pinal Dave

  I have been blogging for almost 7 years and building video content for around 2 years. After spending so much time on blogging and creating video, I have got the quite a good idea what people would like to read and what people like to watch. However, there is one thing, which I am constantly struggling after almost a year and I would like to get your opinion about it. Though, this may look very simple to you but it is very crucial to me and I would like to know your opinion about it. I have been building video almost every week for my SQL in Sixty Seconds series and it has been quite popular. So far on my YouTube Channel there are over 2600 subscribers and over 250K views. Here is my problem – there are about 50+ videos on SQL in Sixty Seconds Series but the not every video is popular. There are a few videos which are extremely popular and there are videos which are absolutely struggling to get even single view. I have yet not figured out what people would love to watch on this channel. I noticed lots of people watching various videos but hardly anyone leaving comments or suggestions. At the end of the blog posts associated with the SQL in Sixty Seconds, I always ask which video people would love to watch, but I get a very low response over there too. What I wonder is that why such a low engagement of viewers/readers on the video blog posts where as the channel is success and lots of people are watching the video? What do you think I should change in my video to increase the engagement? Here are my last three videos from SQL in Sixty Seconds channel and I would like to know your feedback. Remove Cached Login from SSMS Connect Dialog – SQL in Sixty Seconds #049 RESEED Identity Column in Database Table – SQL in Sixty Seconds #051 Puzzle SET ANSI_NULLS and Resultset – SQL in Sixty Seconds #052  The feedback which I will like the most will for sure get a special surprise gift for me. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• SQL SERVER – DMV – sys.dm_os_waiting_tasks and sys.dm_exec_requests – Wait Type – Day 4 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  Previously, we covered the DMV sys.dm_os_wait_stats, and also saw how it can be useful to identify the major resource bottleneck. However, at the same time, we discussed that this is only useful when we are looking at an instance-level picture. Quite often we want to know about the processes going in our server at the given instant. Here is the query for the same. This DMV is written taking the following into consideration: we want to analyze the queries that are currently running or which have recently ran and their plan is still in the cache. SELECT dm_ws.wait_duration_ms, dm_ws.wait_type, dm_es.status, dm_t.TEXT, dm_qp.query_plan, dm_ws.session_ID, dm_es.cpu_time, dm_es.memory_usage, dm_es.logical_reads, dm_es.total_elapsed_time, dm_es.program_name, DB_NAME(dm_r.database_id) DatabaseName, -- Optional columns dm_ws.blocking_session_id, dm_r.wait_resource, dm_es.login_name, dm_r.command, dm_r.last_wait_type FROM sys.dm_os_waiting_tasks dm_ws INNER JOIN sys.dm_exec_requests dm_r ON dm_ws.session_id = dm_r.session_id INNER JOIN sys.dm_exec_sessions dm_es ON dm_es.session_id = dm_r.session_id CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text (dm_r.sql_handle) dm_t CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan (dm_r.plan_handle) dm_qp WHERE dm_es.is_user_process = 1 GO You can change CROSS APPLY to OUTER APPLY if you want to see all the details which are omitted because of the plan cache. Let us analyze the result of the above query and see how it can be helpful to identify the query and the kind of wait type it creates. Click to Enlarage The above query will return various columns. There are various columns that provide very important details. e.g. wait_duration_ms – it indicates current wait for the query that executes at that point of time. wait_type – it indicates the current wait type for the query text – indicates the query text query_plan – when clicked on the same, it will display the query plans There are many other important information like CPU_time, memory_usage, and logical_reads, which can be read from the query as well. In future posts on this series, we will see how once identified wait type we can attempt to reduce the same. Read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: DMV, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DMV, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• Devoxx 2011 Trip Report + Pictures

  - by arungupta

  3350 attendees from 40 countries lived in "paradise" for 5 days last week. This paradise had 170+ rock star speakers delivering 200+ hours of technical content in about 150 sessions. And it truly was a paradise with a clear differentiation from other Java conferences. There were several Oracle speakers at the paradise covering the entire gamut of Java platform. I delivered a Java EE 6 hands-on lab (new content), showcased Java EE 7 and GlassFish 4.0 early work at the keynote, and participated in a panel to talk about Contexts and Dependency Injection. The demo in the keynote showed how to deploy a Java EE application in a managed environment. The demo showed a Conference Planner application that can be used by conference organizers to display sessions, tracks, and speaker information. This same application can be deployed and display data from JavaOne 2011 or Devoxx 2011 based upon the SQL chosen for database initialization. If javaone-sf-2011.sql is chosen for datbase initialization then the application looks like as shown: If devoxx-2011.sql is chosen then the application looks like as shown: And of course, clicking on Tracks, Speakers, Sessions shows you information from the respective conference. The complete source code for the application and detailed instructions are availaable at glassfish.org/javaone2011. In short: Download the sample app and unzip Download GlassFish build b05. Download platform-specific Load Balancer template Run "bin/install.sh" to configure GlassFish Pick javaone-sf-2011.sql or devoxx-2011.sql for database initialization You can also watch the application in action in this video: A breaking news shared at the conference was that Devoxx France is coming from April 18- 20 and 75% of the talks will be in French. Stay tuned for more details on that. I'm sure Antonio and gang will put up a great show out there! Just a tip for the first timers to Devoxx ... A bus leaves from Brussels airport to Antwerp city center between 4am - 11pm at the top of every hour, takes about 45 minutes, and costs 10 euros (only cash). Take a tram #6 (going towards Luchtbal) from Astrid station (next to the city center) and get off at the last station for Metropolis. It takes about 15 minutes. Purchase a day pass at the station using kiosks (much cheaper) or you can buy in the bus as well (about double the price). Either way, cash only. Here are a few pictures captured from the event: And the complete album here: Thank you Stephan for giving me an opportunity to speak at my first Devoxx. I hope to be back next year, just in time for Java EE 7 going final!

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• SQL SERVER – Puzzle to Win Print Book – Explain Value of PERCENTILE_CONT() Using Simple Example

  - by pinaldave

  From last several days I am working on various Denali Analytical functions and it is indeed really fun to refresh the concept which I studied in the school. Earlier I wrote article where I explained how we can use PERCENTILE_CONT() to find median over here SQL SERVER – Introduction to PERCENTILE_CONT() – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012. Today I am going to ask question based on the same blog post. Again just like last time the intention of this puzzle is as following: Learn new concept of SQL Server 2012 Learn new concept of SQL Server 2012 even if you are on earlier version of SQL Server. On another note, SQL Server 2012 RC0 has been announced and available to download SQL SERVER – 2012 RC0 Various Resources and Downloads. Now let’s have fun following query: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, PERCENTILE_CONT(0.5) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS MedianCont FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO The above query will give us the following result: The reason we get median is because we are passing value .05 to PERCENTILE_COUNT() function. Now run read the puzzle. Puzzle: Run following T-SQL code: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, PERCENTILE_CONT(0.9) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS MedianCont FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO Observe the result and you will notice that MidianCont has different value than before, the reason is PERCENTILE_CONT function has 0.9 value passed. For first four value the value is 775.1. Now run following T-SQL code: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, PERCENTILE_CONT(0.1) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS MedianCont FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO Observe the result and you will notice that MidianCont has different value than before, the reason is PERCENTILE_CONT function has 0.1 value passed. For first four value the value is 709.3. Now in my example I have explained how the median is found using this function. You have to explain using mathematics and explain (in easy words) why the value in last columns are 709.3 and 775.1 Hint: SQL SERVER – Introduction to PERCENTILE_CONT() – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012 Rules Leave a comment with your detailed answer by Nov 25's blog post. Open world-wide (where Amazon ships books) If you blog about puzzle’s solution and if you win, you win additional surprise gift as well. Prizes Print copy of my new book SQL Server Interview Questions Amazon|Flipkart If you already have this book, you can opt for any of my other books SQL Wait Stats [Amazon|Flipkart|Kindle] and SQL Programming [Amazon|Flipkart|Kindle]. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL Contest – Win USD 300 Worth Gift – Cartoon Contest is Back

  - by pinaldave

  There are two excellent contests and we have lots of winning to do this year end. 1) Win USD 25 Amazon Gift Cards (10 Units) This is very simple, you just have to download SQL Server DB Optimizer. That’s it! There are only two conditions: You must have a valid email address. As USD 25 Amazon Gift Card will be sent to the same address. Download DB Optimizer between today and Dec 8, 2012. Link to Download DB Optimizer. Every day one winner will be notified about their winning USD 25 Amazon Gift Cards for next 10 days. 2) Win Star Wars R2-D2 Inflatable R/C This the coolest thing to win. I personally want one but as I am running a contest, I can’t  participate. You get this cool Remote Controlled Device – you just have to answer following cartoon contest. Read the complete story and think what will be the answer provided by the smart employee. There are only two conditions: Leave your answer in the comment area of this blog post (every comment will be hidden till Dec 8, 2012). Please leave your answer in the comment area between today and Dec 8, 2012. Remember you can participate as many times as you want. Make sure that your answer is correct and creative. The most creative answer will be selected. The decision of contest owner will be final. We may have runner’s up prices but for the moment let us try to win R2-D2. Here is the cool video of R2D2. Now here is the cartoon story, please follow the story and complete the very last cartoon template. Your answer should be correct and should be creative. However, the ideal answer will not be longer than one or two sentences. Hint: (Hint) Well, Leave your answer in the comment area of this blog post. If you do not win R2D2, trust me there are chances you may win a surprise gift from me. Remember your answer should be correct and should be creative. However, the ideal answer will not be longer than one or two sentences. Last day to participate in both of the contest is Dec 8, 2012. We will announce the winner in the week of December 10. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Quiz and Video – Introduction to SQL Server Security

  - by pinaldave

  This blog post is inspired from Beginning SQL Joes 2 Pros: The SQL Hands-On Guide for Beginners – SQL Exam Prep Series 70-433 – Volume 1. [Amazon] | [Flipkart] | [Kindle] | [IndiaPlaza] This is follow up blog post of my earlier blog post on the same subject - SQL SERVER – Introduction to SQL Server Security – A Primer. In the article we discussed various basics terminology of the security. The article further covers following important concepts of security. Granting Permissions Denying Permissions Revoking Permissions Above three are the most important concepts related to security and SQL Server.  There are many more things one has to learn but without beginners fundamentals one can’t learn the advanced  concepts. Let us have small quiz and check how many of you get the fundamentals right. Quiz 1) If you granted Phil control to the server, but denied his ability to create databases, what would his effective permissions be? Phil can do everything. Phil can do nothing. Phil can do everything except create databases. 2) If you granted Phil control to the server and revoked his ability to create databases, what would his effective permissions be? Phil can do everything. Phil can do nothing. Phil can do everything except create databases. 3) You have a login named James who has Control Server permission. You want to elimintate his ability to create databases without affecting any other permissions. What SQL statement would you use? ALTER LOGIN James DISABLE DROP LOGIN James DENY CREATE DATABASE To James REVOKE CREATE DATABASE To James GRANT CREATE DATABASE To James Now make sure that you write down all the answers on the piece of paper. Watch following video and read earlier article over here. If you want to change the answer you still have chance. Solution 1) 3 2) 1 3) 3 Now compare let us check the answers and compare your answers to following answers. I am very confident you will get them correct. Available at USA: Amazon India: Flipkart | IndiaPlaza Volume: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Please leave your feedback in the comment area for the quiz and video. Did you know all the answers of the quiz? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Display Datetime in Specific Format – SQL in Sixty Seconds #033 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  A very common requirement of developers is to format datetime to their specific need. Every geographic location has different need of the date formats. Some countries follow the standard of mm/dd/yy and some countries as dd/mm/yy. The need of developer changes as geographic location changes. In SQL Server there are various functions to aid this requirement. There is function CAST, which developers have been using for a long time as well function CONVERT which is a more enhanced version of CAST. In the latest version of SQL Server 2012 a new function FORMAT is introduced as well. In this SQL in Sixty Seconds video we cover two different methods to display the datetime in specific format. 1) CONVERT function and 2) FORMAT function. Let me know what you think of this video. Here is the script which is used in the video: -- http://blog.SQLAuthority.com -- SQL Server 2000/2005/2008/2012 onwards -- Datetime SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),GETDATE()) AS DateConvert; SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),GETDATE(),10) AS DateConvert; SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),GETDATE(),110) AS DateConvert; SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),GETDATE(),5) AS DateConvert; SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),GETDATE(),105) AS DateConvert; SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),GETDATE(),113) AS DateConvert; SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),GETDATE(),114) AS DateConvert; GO -- SQL Server 2012 onwards -- Various format of Datetime SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),GETDATE(),113) AS DateConvert; SELECT FORMAT ( GETDATE(), 'dd mon yyyy HH:m:ss:mmm', 'en-US' ) AS DateConvert; SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),GETDATE(),114) AS DateConvert; SELECT FORMAT ( GETDATE(), 'HH:m:ss:mmm', 'en-US' ) AS DateConvert; GO -- Specific usage of Format function SELECT FORMAT(GETDATE(), N'"Current Time is "dddd MMMM dd, yyyy', 'en-US') AS CurrentTimeString; This video discusses CONVERT and FORMAT in simple manner but the subject is much deeper and there are lots of information to cover along with it. I strongly suggest that you go over related blog posts in next section as there are wealth of knowledge discussed there. Related Tips in SQL in Sixty Seconds: Get Date and Time From Current DateTime – SQL in Sixty Seconds #025 Retrieve – Select Only Date Part From DateTime – Best Practice Get Time in Hour:Minute Format from a Datetime – Get Date Part Only from Datetime DATE and TIME in SQL Server 2008 Function to Round Up Time to Nearest Minutes Interval Get Date Time in Any Format – UDF – User Defined Functions Retrieve – Select Only Date Part From DateTime – Best Practice – Part 2 Difference Between DATETIME and DATETIME2 Saturday Fun Puzzle with SQL Server DATETIME2 and CAST What would you like to see in the next SQL in Sixty Seconds video? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)   Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video Tagged: Excel

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• SQL SERVER – SQL Server High Availability Options – Notes from the Field #032

  - by Pinal Dave

  [Notes from Pinal]: When it is about High Availability or Disaster Recovery, I often see people getting confused. There are so many options available that when the user has to select what is the most optimal solution for their organization they are often confused. Most of the people even know the salient features of various options, but when they have to figure out one single option to use they are often not sure which option to use. I like to give ask my dear friend time all these kinds of complicated questions. He has a skill to make a complex subject very simple and easy to understand. Linchpin People are database coaches and wellness experts for a data driven world. In this 26th episode of the Notes from the Fields series database expert Tim Radney (partner at Linchpin People) explains in a very simple words the best High Availability Option for your SQL Server.  Working with SQL Server a common challenge we are faced with is providing the maximum uptime possible.  To meet these demands we have to design a solution to provide High Availability (HA). Microsoft SQL Server depending on your edition provides you with several options.  This could be database mirroring, log shipping, failover clusters, availability groups or replication. Each possible solution comes with pro’s and con’s.  Not anyone one solution fits all scenarios so understanding which solution meets which need is important.  As with anything IT related, you need to fully understand your requirements before trying to solution the problem.  When it comes to building an HA solution, you need to understand the risk your organization needs to mitigate the most. I have found that most are concerned about hardware failure and OS failures. Other common concerns are data corruption or storage issues.  For data corruption or storage issues you can mitigate those concerns by having a second copy of the databases. That can be accomplished with database mirroring, log shipping, replication or availability groups with a secondary replica.  Failover clustering and virtualization with shared storage do not provide redundancy of the data. I recently created a chart outlining some pros and cons of each of the technologies that I posted on my blog. I like to use this chart to help illustrate how each technology provides a certain number of benefits.  Each of these solutions carries with it some level of cost and complexity.  As a database professional we should all be familiar with these technologies so we can make the best possible choice for our organization. If you want me to take a look at your server and its settings, or if your server is facing any issue we can Fix Your SQL Server. Note: Tim has also written an excellent book on SQL Backup and Recovery, a must have for everyone. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Notes from the Field, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Shrinking Database

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• When Less is More

  - by aditya.agarkar

  How do you reconcile the fact that while the overall warehouse volume is down you still need more workers in the warehouse to ship all the orders? A WMS customer recently pointed out this seemingly perplexing fact in a customer conference. So what is going on? Didn't we tell you before that for a warehouse the customer is really the "king"? In this case customers are merely responding to a low overall low demand and uncertainty. They do not want to hold down inventory and one of the ways to do that is by decreasing the order size and ordering more frequently. Overall impact to the warehouse? Two words: "More work!!" This is not all. Smaller order sizes also mean challenges from a transportation perspective including a rise in costlier parcel or LTL shipments instead of cheaper TL shipments. Here is a hypothetical scenario where a customer reduces the order size by 10% and increases the order frequency by 10%. As you can see in the following table, the overall volume declines by 1% but the warehouse has to ship roughly 10% more lines. Order Frequency (Line Count)Order Size (Units)Total VolumeChange (%)10010010,000 -110909,900-1% If you want to see how "Less is More" in graphical terms, this is how it appears: Even though the volume is down, there is going to be more work in the warehouse in terms of number of lines shipped. The operators need to pick more discrete orders, pack them into more shipping containers and ship more deliveries. What do you do differently if you are facing this situation?In this case here are some obvious steps to take:Uno: Change your pick methods. If you are used to doing order picks, it needs to go out the door. You need to evaluate batch picking and grouping techniques. Go for cluster picking, go for zone picking, pick and pass...anything that improves your picker productivity. More than anything, cluster picking works like a charm and above all, its simple and very effective. Dos: Are you minimize "touch" points in your pick process? Consider doing one step pick, pack and confirm i.e. pick and pack stuff directly into shipping cartons. Done correctly the container will not require any more "touch" points all the way to the trailer loading. Use cartonization!Tres: Are the being picked from an optimized pick face? Are the items slotted correctly? This needs to be looked into. Consider automated "pull" or "push" replenishment into your pick face and also make sure that high demand items are occupying the golden zones.  Cuatro: Are you tracking labor productivity? If not there needs to be a concerted push for having labor standards in place. Hope you found these ideas useful.

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• SQL SERVER – Maximize Database Performance with DB Optimizer – SQL in Sixty Seconds #054

  - by Pinal Dave

  Performance tuning is an interesting concept and everybody evaluates it differently. Every developer and DBA have different opinion about how one can do performance tuning. I personally believe performance tuning is a three step process Understanding the Query Identifying the Bottleneck Implementing the Fix While, we are working with large database application and it suddenly starts to slow down. We are all under stress about how we can get back the database back to normal speed. Most of the time we do not have enough time to do deep analysis of what is going wrong as well what will fix the problem. Our primary goal at that time is to just fix the database problem as fast as we can. However, here is one very important thing which we need to keep in our mind is that when we do quick fix, it should not create any further issue with other parts of the system. When time is essence and we want to do deep analysis of our system to give us the best solution we often tend to make mistakes. Sometimes we make mistakes as we do not have proper time to analysis the entire system. Here is what I do when I face such a situation – I take the help of DB Optimizer. It is a fantastic tool and does superlative performance tuning of the system. Everytime when I talk about performance tuning tool, the initial reaction of the people is that they do not want to try this as they believe it requires lots of the learning of the tool before they use it. It is absolutely not true with the case of the DB optimizer. It is a very easy to use and self intuitive tool. Once can get going with the product, in no time. Here is a quick video I have build where I demonstrate how we can identify what index is missing for query and how we can quickly create the index. Entire three steps of the query tuning are completed in less than 60 seconds. If you are into performance tuning and query optimization you should download DB Optimizer and give it a go. Let us see the same concept in following SQL in Sixty Seconds Video: You can Download DB Optimizer and reproduce the same Sixty Seconds experience. Related Tips in SQL in Sixty Seconds: Performance Tuning – Part 1 of 2 – Getting Started and Configuration Performance Tuning – Part 2 of 2 – Analysis, Detection, Tuning and Optimizing What would you like to see in the next SQL in Sixty Seconds video? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video Tagged: Identity

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• SQLAuthority News – Presented at Bangalore DevCon August 4, 2012

  - by pinaldave

  Bangalore Devcon 2012 was a great fun. Earlier this month I was fortunate to be invited to present at Dev Con. The event was very well planned and had excellent response. There were more than 140 attendees at any time in the sessions. There were two tracks and both tracks were running parallel to each other in the Microsoft Bangalore building. The venue is fantastic and the enthusiasm of the community is impeccable. We had a total of 12 sessions during the day. I had decided to attend each session if I can. We have so many fantastic speakers and I did not want to miss any of the sessions. As sessions were running parallel, I attended every session for 30 minutes and switched to another session. I had fun doing this experiment as tit gave me a good idea about every session. I presented personally on the session of SQL Tips and Tricks for Web Developer. DBA is a very common word and every time when we say SQL Server – lots of people think of DBA in their mind, however, SQL Server is used by many developers as well. In this session I tried to cover a few of the simple concepts where developers must pay special attention while writing T-SQL code. Sometimes a very small mistake can be very fatal on performance in the future. Here are few of the photos of the event. Btw, the two sessions which clearly stand out were Vinod Kumar‘s session on Leadership and Lohith‘s session on Visual Studio Tips and Tricks. Additional Read: Following are the blog posts by community on the Bangalore DevCon Experience. I encourage you to read them all and leave a comment which one you liked the most. http://abhishekbhat.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/devcon-2012-experience/ http://praveenprajapati.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/devcon-2012-part-2/ http://tomsblogsspot.blogspot.in/2012/08/devcon-2012.html?view=classic https://manasdash.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/devcon-2012-by-bdotnet-4th-august-2012/ http://www.jagan-bhathri.com/2012/08/bangalore-developer-conference-2012-by.html Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• Chunking a List - .NET vs Python

  - by Abhijeet Patel

  Chunking a List As I mentioned last time, I'm knee deep in python these days. I come from a statically typed background so it's definitely a mental adjustment. List comprehensions is BIG in Python and having worked with a few of them I can see why. Let's say we need to chunk a list into sublists of a specified size. Here is how we'd do it in C#  static class Extensions   {       public static IEnumerable<List<T>> Chunk<T>(this List<T> l, int chunkSize)       {           if (chunkSize <0)           {               throw new ArgumentException("chunkSize cannot be negative", "chunkSize");           }           for (int i = 0; i < l.Count; i += chunkSize)           {               yield return new List<T>(l.Skip(i).Take(chunkSize));           }       }    }    static void Main(string[] args)  {           var l = new List<string> { "a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f","g" };             foreach (var list in l.Chunk(7))           {               string str = list.Aggregate((s1, s2) => s1 + "," + s2);               Console.WriteLine(str);           }   }   A little wordy but still pretty concise thanks to LINQ.We skip the iteration number plus chunkSize elements and yield out a new List of chunkSize elements on each iteration. The python implementation is a bit more terse. def chunkIterable(iter, chunkSize):      '''Chunks an iterable         object into a list of the specified chunkSize     '''        assert hasattr(iter, "__iter__"), "iter is not an iterable"      for i in xrange(0, len(iter), chunkSize):          yield iter[i:i + chunkSize]    if __name__ == '__main__':      l = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f']      generator = chunkIterable(l,2)      try:          while(1):              print generator.next()      except StopIteration:          pass   xrange generates elements in the specified range taking in a seed and returning a generator. which can be used in a for loop(much like using a C# iterator in a foreach loop) Since chunkIterable has a yield statement, it turns this method into a generator as well. iter[i:i + chunkSize] essentially slices the list based on the current iteration index and chunksize and creates a new list that we yield out to the caller one at a time. A generator much like an iterator is a state machine and each subsequent call to it remembers the state at which the last call left off and resumes execution from that point. The caveat to keep in mind is that since variables are not explicitly typed we need to ensure that the object passed in is iterable using hasattr(iter, "__iter__").This way we can perform chunking on any object which is an "iterable", very similar to accepting an IEnumerable in the .NET land

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