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What’s Better, CTEs or Temp Tables?

Brent Ozar
T-SQL
30 Comments
I get this question a lot, so let’s set up an example with the Stack Overflow database. My query’s goal is to: Find the top 5 Locations List the users who live in those top 5 Locations, alphabetized by their DisplayName There are a LOT of ways I could write this query, but for the…
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The Silent Bug I Find in Most Triggers

Brent Ozar
T-SQL
28 Comments
Get Notebook – FAQ I don’t have a problem with triggers. They get the job done when you need to implement business logic in a hurry, and you’re not allowed to change the application. As long as you keep the number of statements to a minimum (say, 2-3), and don’t try to do something really…
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Froid

Finding Froid’s Limits: Testing Inlined User-Defined Functions

Brent Ozar
Execution Plans, SQL Server 2019, T-SQL
14 Comments
This week, I’ve been writing about how SQL Server 2019’s bringing a few new features to mitigate parameter sniffing, but they’re more complex than they appear at first glance: adaptive memory grants, air_quote_actual plans, and adaptive joins. Today, let’s talk about another common cause of wildly varying durations for a single query: user-defined functions. Scalar…
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Tuning Dynamic SQL by Hand with Short Circuits

Brent Ozar
T-SQL
7 Comments
When we think about building dynamic SQL, we usually think about a stored procedure like this that takes input parameters, builds a string, and then executes that string. Here’s a simple example: Transact-SQL CREATE OR ALTER PROC dbo.usp_SearchUsers @SearchDisplayName NVARCHAR(40) = NULL, @SearchLocation NVARCHAR(100) = NULL, @SearchReputation INT = NULL AS BEGIN DECLARE @StringToExecute NVARCHAR(4000);…
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No longer uses the index

Do Functions Stop You From Using Indexes?

Brent Ozar
Indexing, T-SQL
5 Comments
Say I’ve got a function in my WHERE clause: Transact-SQL SELECT DisplayName FROM dbo.Users WHERE LTRIM(RTRIM(DisplayName)) = 'Brent Ozar'; 123 SELECT DisplayName  FROM dbo.Users  WHERE LTRIM(RTRIM(DisplayName)) = 'Brent Ozar'; If I have an index on DisplayName, will SQL Server use it? Sure: Function in the WHERE clause Even though SQL Server can’t seek to “Brent Ozar,” it will…
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What Is SQL Injection?

Brent Ozar
T-SQL
4 Comments
Say we have a stored procedure that queries the Stack Overflow database. We have two separate parameters, @DisplayName and @Location, so folks can search for people by name, location, or both. For performance reasons, we decide to build dynamic SQL: Transact-SQL CREATE OR ALTER PROC dbo.UserSearch @DisplayName NVARCHAR(40) = NULL, @Location NVARCHAR(100) = NULL AS…
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SUM, AVG, and arithmetic overflow

Erik Darling
T-SQL
14 Comments
You Shoulda Brought A Bigger Int Sometimes you run a query, and everything goes fine. For a while. For example, if I run this query in the 2010 copy of Stack Overflow, it finishes pretty quickly, and without error. Transact-SQL SELECT u.Id, u.DisplayName, SUM(p.Score) AS SumPostScore, AVG(c.Score) AS SumCommentScore FROM dbo.Users AS u JOIN dbo.Posts…
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What’s New in SQL Server 2019: Faster Table Variables (And New Parameter Sniffing Issues)

Brent Ozar
SQL Server 2019, T-SQL
16 Comments
For over a decade, SQL Server’s handling of table variables has been legendarily bad. I’ve long used this Stack Overflow query from Sam Saffron to illustrate terrible cardinality estimation: Transact-SQL declare @VoteStats table (PostId int, up int, down int) insert @VoteStats select PostId, up = sum(case when VoteTypeId = 2 then 1 else 0 end), down…
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Stupid T-SQL Tricks

Brent Ozar
Bad Idea Jeans, T-SQL
31 Comments
Presented without comment: Transact-SQL CREATE TABLE dbo.[FROM] ([SELECT] INT, [WHERE] INT, [LIKE] INT); GO SELECT [SELECT] FROM [FROM] WHERE [WHERE] LIKE [LIKE]; GO 1234 CREATE TABLE dbo.[FROM] ([SELECT] INT, [WHERE] INT, [LIKE] INT);GOSELECT [SELECT] FROM [FROM] WHERE [WHERE] LIKE [LIKE];GO Next up, can you break up a query with spaces? Yep: Transact-SQL SELECT * FROM…
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How to Get a Random Row from a Large Table

Brent Ozar
T-SQL
16 Comments
Method 1, Bad: ORDER BY NEWID() Easy to write, but it performs like hot, hot garbage because it scans the entire clustered index, calculating NEWID() on every row: The plan with the scan That took 6 seconds on my machine, going parallel across multiple threads, using tens of seconds of CPU for all that computing…
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Fifteen Things I Hate About ISNUMERIC

Erik Darling
T-SQL
15 Comments
Yello! Transact-SQL SELECT ISNUMERIC('$') AS [What] UNION ALL SELECT ISNUMERIC('£') AS [What] UNION ALL SELECT ISNUMERIC(',') AS [What] UNION ALL SELECT ISNUMERIC('.') AS [What] UNION ALL SELECT ISNUMERIC('0e+99') AS [What] UNION ALL SELECT ISNUMERIC('2e2') AS [What] UNION ALL SELECT ISNUMERIC('12D4') AS [What] UNION ALL SELECT ISNUMERIC(',1,1,1,1,1,1,1') AS [What] UNION ALL SELECT ISNUMERIC('-') AS [What] UNION…
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