SQL Server at SQL Book

SQL Server Command Line utilities

This section demonstrates some useful command line utilities that come with SQL Server that enable powerful queries, statistics and commands to be run without using Enterprise manager or SSMS.

• Using the tablediff command line utility in SQL Server

  The tablediff command line utitlity provides us with the ability to compare the content of two tables in a database and can tell us which rows and columns are different.

• Using the SQLCMD command line utility for SQL SERVER

  sqlcmd gives us the functionality (and more) of the osql and isql command line utitlities that were present in SQL 2000 but have now been deprecated. It can also connect to previous versions of SQL Server such as SQL Server 2000.

 

Miscellaneous

Useful articles that can help solve SQL Server problems.

• Move a database using the ALTER DATABASE statement in SQL Server

  Learn to use a feature of SQL Server - how to move a database using the ALTER DATABASE statement. This enables the physical location of the database file and transaction log to be changed using a TSQL command.

• Formatting dates in SQL Server

  This article identifies issues that should be addressed when working with dates in SQL Server and gives examples of how dates can be formatted to the required format.

• Using DDL Triggers in SQL Server to audit database objects

  This article demonstrates how DDL triggers can be used to a) audit changes made to database objects using the EventData function and b) control schema changes using the ROLLBACK command.

 

Writing Stored Procedures

Stored Procedures have the benefits of centralising your SQL code, providing protection from SQL Injection attacks, having pre-compiled execution plans and much more. Find out how to write Stored Procedures in this section.

• SQL Script to automatically generate CRUD Stored Procedures

  Speed up development by automatically generating common stored procedure definitions. The script provided in this article autogenerates Stored Procedure definitions for SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE queries.

• Why use Stored Procedures?

  Using Stored Procedures gives us many benefits. In this article we will outline why we should be aiming to use Stored Procedures to enable our web and windows applications to interact with our SQL Server database.