Category: TSQL

Utility function: dbo.JobName(@job_id)

Post author By Jen McCown
Post date March 28, 2016
Categories In Admin, sql server, sqlserverpedia-syndication, SSC, Tips, TSQL
2 Comments on Utility function: dbo.JobName(@job_id)

As often as I have to pull a job’s name based on its job_id in the MSDB system tables, I’m truly stunned that I’ve never done this before: CREATE FUNCTION dbo.JobName ( @job_id UNIQUEIDENTIFIER ) /* A little utility function to return a job name based on the job_id. No warranty or guarantee implied. Use at […]

Fun with Operator Precedence

Post author By Jen McCown
Post date December 31, 2015
Categories In Beginner, sqlserverpedia-syndication, SSC, Tech and Learning, TSQL
2 Comments on Fun with Operator Precedence

Let’s have some fun with operator precedence today. Specifically, logical operator precedence. Specifically, how is it evaluated when your where clause says “WHERE This AND That OR Something AND that”, without any clarifying parenthesis? Let’s play around with this. The simplest test scenario is a SELECT 1. If I get a 1 back, that means my WHERE clause evaluated […]

“Thing IS NOT NULL” isn’t the same as “Thing != NULL”

Post author By Jen McCown
Post date March 16, 2015
Categories In Applied SQL, Beginner, Dev, sql server, sqlserverpedia-syndication, SSC, Tech and Learning, TSQL
15 Comments on “Thing IS NOT NULL” isn’t the same as “Thing != NULL”

I’ve talked about NULLs before. (Ref: Here’s a bit on ISNULL(), and here’s one about understanding NULL at a basic level.) And yet, it’s worthwhile to bring these things up from time to time. “[Thing] != NULL” is nonsense. It won’t work the way you want it to work, because NULL literally means “unknown”. Nothing in the […]