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Databases

Add-Equals operator

Shortcuts & tips from an Impatient DBA This series of short posts will demonstrate some lesser-known features, keyboard shortcuts, and other tips that make my day as a DBA more productive. None of these are groundbreaking super-secret features–they are the …

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CONVERT() to float using scientific notation

Someone posted to #sqlhelp on Twitter, asking the following: “Wondered if anyone could enlighten me as to why ISNUMERIC(‘7d8’) returns 1?” Sure enough, SELECT ISNUMERIC('7d8') returns a 1. WTF? d isn’t numeric! OK, sure, if you say “seven-dee-eight” out loud …

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How fast queries hurt performance

This week at work, I noticed CPU on one server seemed pretty high. I wasn’t familiar with this particular server, but based on the applications it supported, I was expecting the server to be under-utilized. I went over to vCenter to look at historical CPU …

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