Reporting Services and BLOBs - sql

A database I report on using SSRS has a column which is stored as a BLOB. I happen to know that the BLOB contains XML (a string).
Is there any way for reporting services to extract this information?
Thanks

without more details you should be able to either cast the Data in TSQL to the Appropriate type: CAST(MyBlob As XML) or CAST(MyBlob as NVARCHAR(max)) assuming the type is stored in an ntext.
otherwise you may need to write some conversion code in an SSRS expression to create a calculated field.

OK, I found a limited solution - builds would be welcome.
You need to use the function
dbms_lob.substr([fieldname], [number_of_characters], [start_position])
Note that [number_of_characters] appears to have a maximum value of 2000

Related

colon(:) and dot(.) as millisecond separator in datetime2

I have migrated a Sybase database to SQL server 2008.
The main application that using the database trying to set some of dateTime2 column with data like 1986-12-24 16:56:57:81000 which is giving this error:
Conversion failed when converting date and/or time from character string.
Running the same query using dot(.) instead of colon(:) as millisecond separator like 1986-12-24 16:56:57.81000 or limiting the milliseconds to 3 digits like 1986-12-24 16:56:57:810 will solve the problem.
NOTE:
1- I don't have access to the source of application to fix this issue and there are lots of table with the same problem.
2. Application connect to database using ODBC connection.
Is there any fast forwarding solution or should i write lots of triggers on all tables to fix it using the above solutions?
Thanks in advance
AS Gordon Linoff said
A trigger on the current table is not going to help because the type
conversion happens before the trigger is called. Think of how the
trigger works: the data is available in a "protorow".
But There is a simple answer!
Using SQL Server Native Client Connection instead of basic SQL Server ODBC connection handle everything.
Note:
1. As i used SQL Server 2008 version 10 of SQL server native client works fine but not the version 11 (it's for SQL Server 2012).
2. Use Regional Settings make some other conversion problem so don't use it if you don't need it.
Select REPLACE(getdate(), ':', '.')
But it will Give String Formate to datetime Which is not covert into DateTime formate
Why would you need triggers? You can use update to change the last ':' to '.':
update t
set col = stuff(col, 20, 1, '.');
You also mistakenly describe the column as datetime2. That uses an internal date/time format. Your column is clearly a string.
EDIT:
I think I misinterpreted the question (assuming the data is already in a table). Bring the data into staging tables and do the conversion in another step.
A trigger on the current table is not going to help because the type conversion happens before the trigger is called. Think of how the trigger works: the data is available in a "protorow".
You could get a trigger to work by creating views and building a trigger on a view, but that is even worse. Perhaps the simplest solution would be:
Change the name and data type of the column so it contains a string.
Add a computed column that converts the value to datetime2.

Server 2012 R2 SQL Database Change Column From ntext to nvarchar

I have a predefined SQL data base that we have to work correctly with a reporting software we have purchased. When ever we pull a column of data with the reporting software we get system.indexoutofrangeexception error. On the first table we replaced all Semi Colons ';' with space within the data and this corrected the issue. This column does not have any other special characters within the data only semi colons.
However the data in the second column we need to query contains all different kinds of characters that are probably invalid. The column type is ntext and would like to either change the data directly in the sql database everytime there is a new entry or would changing the format to nvarchar(max) or nvarchar(1024) be suffice?
Thanks for the support I am beyond green at sql.
Your problem is most likely not related to the datatype in your database but the data itself.
Your reporting software seems to have specific requirements that your data does not meet.

Search and Replace a a partial string / substring in mssql tables

I was tasked with moving an installation of Orchard CMS to a different server and domain. All the content (page content, menu structure, links, etc.) is stored in an MSSQL database. The good part: When moving the physical files of the Orchard installation to the new server, the database will stay the same, no need to migrate it. The bad thing: There are lots and lots of absolute URLs scattered all over the pages and menus.
I have isolated / pinned down the tables and fields in which the URLs occur, but I lack the (MS)SQL experience/knowledge to do a "search - replace". So I come here for help (I have tried exporting the tables to .sql files, doing a search-replace in a text editor, and then re-importing the .sql files to the database, but ran into several syntax errors... so i need to do this the "SQL way").
To give an example:
The table Common_BodyPartRecord has the field Text of type ntext that contains HTML content. I need to find every occurance of the partial string /oldserver.com/foo/ and replace it with /newserver.org/bar/. There can be multiple occurances of the pattern within the same table entry.
(In total I have 5 patterns that will need replacing, all partial string / substrings of urls, domains/paths, etc.)
I usually do frontend stuff and came to this assignment by chance. I have used MySQL back in the day I was playing around with PHP related stuff, but never got past eh basics of SQL - it would be helpful if you could keep your explainations more or less newbie-friendly.
The SQL server version is SQL Server 9.0.4053, I have access to the database via the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 12
Any help is highly appreciated!
You can't manipulate the NTEXT datatype directly, but you can CAST it to VARCHAR(MAX), then use the REPLACE function to perform the string replacement, then CAST it back to NTEXT. This can all be done in a single UPDATE statement.
update MyTable
set MyColmun = cast(replace(cast(MyColumn as nvarchar(max)), N'/oldserver.com/foo/', N'/newserver.org/bar/') as ntext)
where cast(MyColumn as nvarchar(max)) LIKE N'%/oldserver.com/foo/%'
The WHERE clause in the UPDATE statement below is used to prevent SQL Server from making non-changes, i.e. if the value does not need to be changed then there is no need to update it to itself.
The CAST function is used to change the data type of a value. NTEXT is a legacy data type used for storing large character values, NVARCHAR(MAX) is a new and more versatile data type for storing large character values. The REPLACE function can not operate on NTEXT values, hence the need to CAST it to NVARCHAR(MAX) first, do the replace, then CAST it back to NTEXT afterwards.

Integration Services double to string

I'm using Integration Services to load data from an Excel file to SQL Server table. When I try to send a number stored as double (DT_R8) into a database column where data are stored as varchar(50) I find a queer rounding.
For example consider data in first row first column of above image. Original value is 31.35 but as a string it's stored as shown below
I already tried to use a Delivered Column transformation to cast to string before exporting to SQL, I also added a Round(x, 5) but I get the same result.
How can I solve this problem given that I can't change SQL column data type?
The only working solution was changing the input type from double (DT_R8) to currency [DT_CY]. It seems that the rounding performed on double (DT_R8) make its use difficult when parsing is somehow involved in the export process.

What is the best SQL type to use for a large string variable?

Apologies for the rather basic question.
I have an error string that is built dynamically. The data in the string is passed by various third parties so I don't have any control, nor do I know the ultimate size of the string.
I have a transaction table that currently logs details and I want to include the string so that I can reference back to it if necessary.
2 questions:
How should I store it in the database?
Should I do anything else such as contrain the string in code?
I'm using Sql Server 2008 Web.
If you want to store non unicode text, you can use:
varchar(max) or nvarchar(max)
Maximum length is 2GB.
Other alternatives are:
binary or varbinary
Drawbacks: you can't search into these fields and index and order them
and the maximum size : 2GB.
There are TEXT and NTEXT, but they will be deprecated in the future,
so I don't suggest to use them.
They have the same drawbacks as binary.
So the best choice is one of varchar(max) or nvarchar(max).
You can use SQL Server nvarchar(MAX).
Check out this too.
Eventualy, you can enable and use a FILESTREAM feature of SQL Server 2008 (it's supported by WEB edition), and deal with extra large amount of data in sense of documents.
Of course, you need to be sure that you will use a benefit of this service.