Newbie question: I'm using SQL Server on a remote server where I cannot use UDFs of any type. I am using a database where one column is a text column containing several paragraphs of text per entry. As I test my code, I would like to have a way to efficiently access these columns a few at a time.
Currently, the only way I can find to do this is using eg:
SELECT TOP 25 ReportText
FROM MyDb.Table1
...which, of course, gives the output in the Results window, as a single string of characters that I have to keep dragging the column width wider and wider and wider in order to try to see.
What am I missing? I don't need it to look pretty, I just need to be able to see it efficiently....
As #JohnSpecko pointed out in a comment, results to text is exactly what I needed. It is turned on by hitting (ctrl+t) before running your query. Thanks!
Related
My question right now is whether something can be done or not, as a result, no code has been included in this question. If it can be done what is the correct phrase that I can query and research this further.
I am working with a customer database where the request has been made that if a specific word is used in the comments field, that word is replaced or hidden when the query is used report and viewed using SSRS / Report Builder.
I had also wondered if even an expression can be written to hide or mask that word, and this would then be used in the tablix field that is used on the report.
Any suggestions are appreciated.
The database is Microsoft SQL 2016 with SSRS 2017 and Report Builder 2016.
If there is a specific word, then the answer is simple. You can just use replace(). In fact, you can add this into the table:
alter table t add safe_comments as (replace(comments, '<bad word>', 'XXXXXXX'));
You can extend this to a handful of hard-coded words by nesting replace() values.
I suspect, however, that your problem is that you have a fairly long list of words that you want to replace. If that is the case, such a simple solution is not going to work.
It is possible in SQL Server to remove a list of words, stored in a table, from a given comment. That requires a recursive CTE (or a user-defined function). This probably has acceptable performance for returning a single record or a handful of records. However, for scanning the entire table, it would probably be too slow.
I'm sure I'm making some kind of rookie error here, but I have no idea what the problem is. I am trying to run a simple query on one table in a microsoft access database using the LIKE property to find records that have a certain text string in a particular field. More specifically, the table, called Catreqs, has a few fields, bib_num, MARC_336, MARC_337, and MARC_338. The MARC_336 field has a text string in it and I want a query that selects all the records for which that text string includes the characters "txt".
Here's my query:
SELECT [Catreqs].record_num, [Catreqs].MARC_336
FROM [Catreqs]
WHERE [Catreqs].MARC_336 Like '%txt%';
I should note that I created this query in MS Access design view and this is the query that was generated when I switched to SQL view. I am a little familiar with SQL and even less familiar with Access so this is actually my preferred way of dealing with it.
I've also tried using Like '*txt*' but that didn't return any results either. For reference, here is the entire text string these characters are in:
text txt rdacontent
Any suggestions thoughts on why this fails and how I can fix it?
Thanks!
In Access, for a string you must use the * character.
Check if [Catreqs] has rows where MARC_336 contains "txt".
This is the official documentation of Access:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Like-Operator-b2f7ef03-9085-4ffb-9829-eef18358e931?ui=it-IT&rs=en-001&ad=IT&omkt=en-001
I frequently do a static analysis of SQL databases, during which I have the luxury of nobody being able to change the data except me.
However, I have not found a way to 'tell' this to SQL in order to prevent running the same query multiple times.
Here is what I would like to do, first I start with a complicated query that has a very small output.
SELECT * FROM MYTABLE WHERE MYPROPERTY = 1234
Then I run a simple query from the same window (Mostly using SQL server studio if that is relevant)
SELECT 1
Now I suddenly realize that I forgot to save the results from my first complicated (slow) query.
As I know the underlying data did not change (or even if it did) I would like to look one step back and simply get the result. However at the moment I don't know any trick to do this and I have to run the entire query again.
So the question summary is: How can I (automatically store/)get the results from recently executed queries.
I am particulary interested in simple select queries, and would be happy to allocate say 100MB memory for automated result storage. Would prefer a solution that works in SQL server studio with T-SQL, but other SQL solutions are also welcome.
EDIT: I am not looking for a way to manually prevent this from happening. In the cases where I can anticipate the problem it will not happen.
This can't be done in Microsoft SQL Server. SQL Server does not cache results, instead it caches data pages that were accessed by your query. This should make your query go a lot faster the second time around so it won't be as painful to re-run it.
In other databases, such as Oracle and MySQL, they do have a query caching mechanism that will allow you to retrieve the results directly the second time around.
I run into this frequently, I often just throw the results of longer-running queries into a temp table:
SELECT *
INTO #results1
FROM MYTABLE WHERE MYPROPERTY = 1234
SELECT *
FROM #results1
If the query is very long-running I might use a 'real' table. It's a good way to save on re-run time.
Downside is that it adds to your query.
You can also send query results to a file in SSMS, info on formatting the output is here: SSMS Results to File
The easiest way to do this is to run each query in its own SSMS window, the results will stay there until you close it, or run out of memory - besides that, I am not sure there is a way to accomplish what you want.
Once you close the SSMS window, I don't believe there is a way to get back 'cached' results.
This isn't a technical answer to your question. Having written queries and looking at results for many years, I am in the habit of saving the results in Excel, regardless of the database/query tool I'm using.
The format in Excel is rather methodical:
Each worksheet has the date. (Called something like "1 Jul".)
Each spreadsheet contains one month. (Typically with the month name like "work-201307".)
In the "B" column I copy and paste the query.
Underneath, in the "C" column, I copy and paste the results.
The next query starts a few lines after, one after the other.
I put the queries in the "B" column, so I can go to the "A" column and use to get to the first row. I put the results in the "C" column, so I can go to the "B" column and use to move between queries.
I mostly do this so I can go back and see the work I did many months ago. For instance, someone sends an email from February and says "do this again". I can go back to the February spreadsheet, go to the day it was created, and see what I was doing at that time.
In your question, though, I realize that I now instinctively solve this problem, because the "right click on the grid, copy with column headers, alt-tab to excel, alt-V" is a behavior that I comes quite naturally.
I was going to suggest you to run each query into a script with a counter (stored in a table) increased each time the query is executed (i.e. i++) and storing each query in a Temp Table called "tmpTable" + i, but it sounds very complicated to manage. Am I right?
Then I googled and I've found this Tool Pack: I didn't try it but you could take a look:
http://www.ssmstoolspack.com/Features
Hope it helps.
EDIT: added the folliwing link. There's the option to output as XML file and they mention SQL Server Integration Services as a possible solution too.
http://michaeljswart.com/2012/03/sending-query-results-to-others/#method5
SECOND EDIT: There's this DBMS-Independent tool too, it sounds interesting:
http://www.sql-workbench.net/
i am not sure this is what you want. Anyway check my answer
In sql server management studio you can open multiple tabs for executing queries. Open new tab for each query, then the result of executed queries will be available under that tab.
After executing one query in a tab dont use that tab for new query, open new tab for that job.
Have you considered using some kind of offline SQL client such as Excel? Specifically, Excel will retrieve the results into the spread sheet (using the Data ribbon/menus) where they are stored pretty much permanently as results. It will prompt you to refresh when necessary or you can do it on demand.
Your question as to whether it can be done in T/SQL or other databases depends on the database and results cache and even then they are options that the query processor can use not guarantees to the individual query.
I have an Access 2007 database that uses the "Attachment" datatype (new in Access 2007) for one of its field. This field is a magical "multi-valued" field that can contain several attachments.
I would like to be able to easily see the contents of this field, for all the rows in the database, using a single ODBC query. Ideally, each row of the original table should be exactly one row, and I'd like all the attachments returned as a single database cell. In a perfect world, it would be possible to reinsert that set of attachments into another table using a single INSERT INTO query.
I think that might be a tall order, so if I have to, I'd settle for:
An SQL query that tells me the number of attachments in a given attachment field
or worst case:
An SQL query that tells me whether or not the attachments in a given row are empty or not.
I can't seem to find any good docs about multi-valued fields around on the net. Perhaps they're too new.
Thoughts?
(P.S. Don't bother telling me that multi-valued fields are evil. I already know. I'm not the one who made the database.)
If you can use ADO then connect to the data source without using OLEDB:Support Complex Data=True in the connection string and query the column: you should get a column of type adLongVarWChar (i.e. MEMO) where the value is the file names delimited by semicolon characters. Therefore, getting a list of files will merely involve a simple parse.
It may be possible to get the attachments using ADO but I've yet to see it done. Using OLEDB:Support Complex Data=True means you will get a column of type adIDispatch i.e. an object. What that object is, I do not know (I hoped it would be a an ADODB.Recordset but no go).
See http://www.access-freak.com/tutorials.html#Tutorial07 for some information although he doesn't have a good screenshot or SQL of the query. His website isn't the best formatted or readable either.
This assumes you're running the query from inside Access 2007. If you want to run it via ODBC see http://groups.google.ca/group/microsoft.public.data.odbc/browse_thread/thread/d0ee29cc5e54e0fb
I have 150+ SQL queries in separate text files that I need to analyze (just the actual SQL code, not the data results) in order to identify all column names and table names used. Preferably with the number of times each column and table makes an appearance. Writing a brand new SQL parsing program is trickier than is seems, with nested SELECT statements and the like.
There has to be a program, or code out there that does this (or something close to this), but I have not found it.
I actually ended up using a tool called
SQL Pretty Printer. You can purchase a desktop version, but I just used the free online application. Just copy the query into the text box, set the Output to "List DB Object" and click the Format SQL button.
It work great using around 150 different (and complex) SQL queries.
How about using the Execution Plan report in MS SQLServer? You can save this to an xml file which can then be parsed.
You may want to looking to something like this:
JSqlParser
which uses JavaCC to parse and return the query string as an object graph. I've never used it, so I can't vouch for its quality.
If you're application needs to do it, and has access to a database that has the tables etc, you could run something like:
SELECT TOP 0 * FROM MY_TABLE
Using ADO.NET. This would give you a DataTable instance for which you could query the columns and their attributes.
Please go with antlr... Write a grammar n follow the steps..which is given in antlr site..eventually you will get AST(abstract syntax tree). For the given query... we can traverse through this and bring all table ,column which is present in the query..
In DB2 you can append your query with something such as the following, but 1 is the minimum you can specify; it will throw an error if you try to specify 0:
FETCH FIRST 1 ROW ONLY