RTFM365, Week 6

Just a quick note this week….things are quite crazy right now, and I’m struggling to keep reading on my days off.  It’s really become a pleasure to have some set time for reading on weekdays, though. 

Boilerplate: 

For the next year (minus about 1.5 months now), I will read from SQL Server Books Online a little every day, and blog about it weekly. See my RTFM365 post for the full details on this project, and follow along with the series via the RTFM365 tag

Reading this week was in SQL Server 2008 R2 Books Online unless otherwise noted. Please note: I’m exploring BOL and learning a little each day; I’m not here to read it to you or review it.  

I’m keeping mostly to one section, “Elements of Transact-SQL” (DB Engine > Development > Querying and Changing Data > Accessing and Changing Database Data > Elements of Transact-SQL).  Last week I read the Identifiers section; this week, Data Types (including Data Type Synonyms). 

I also read Using Binary Data, and (for work): Database Mirroring (top level articles, drilldown through Overview…I left off at “Transact-SQL Settings and Database Mirroring Operating Modes”)

Notes on what I read this week:

According to this article, SQL has 38 system data types. Data Type Synonyms was interesting, and I typed this up just to see how archaric it looks:

DECLARE @nvar NATIONAL CHAR VARYING(10) = 'hi'
SELECT @nvar

Happy days,
Jen McCown
http://www.MidnightDBA.com/Jen