Category: Beginner

Tip: RESTORE FILELISTONLY / WITH MOVE

As we’ve seen in recent DBARant-able tales, not everyone is completely familiar with methods of restoring SQL backup files to new filepaths. The answer, in short, is: RESTORE FILELISTONLY/ RESTORE WITH MOVE. Let’s say that you backed up the database ImportantDB from your production server, and you want to restore it to a test server. […]

SELECT, Deconstructed

Today let’s expand on the logical processing order of SELECT that I mentioned in last week’s N Things Worth Knowing About SELECT blog. We’re looking at the SELECT statement clauses in the order that the SQL engine logically processes them…we’ll even write it that way – it’ll look weird, but we’ll be reading it like […]

N Things Worth Knowing About CTEs

Edit: This post was originally published on August 26, 2010. If you haven’t messed with them yet, you should know that CTEs (Common Table Expressions) – new in SQL Server 2005 – are actualy pretty #awesomesauce. A CTE is, in essence, a temporary view attached to your SELECT statement.  They’re good for a number of uses, […]