Database.Guide – Page 302

Switch-Out a Partition in SQL Server (T-SQL)

November 22, 2020 by Ian

In SQL Server, partition switching allows you to load large amounts of data in or out of a table very quickly. This saves you from having to run delete or insert statements, and can be very useful when working with large data sets.

You can use the ALTER TABLE statement to switch a partition in or out of a table.

To switch a partition out of a table, the code goes like this:

ALTER TABLE Table1
SWITCH PARTITION x TO Table2

This switches partition x from Table1 to Table2 (where x is the partition number).

SQL INSERT for Beginners

October 20, 2022November 21, 2020 by Ian

This article contains basic SQL INSERT statements that beginners can use to insert data into their database tables.

SQL CREATE TABLE for Beginners

November 22, 2020November 21, 2020 by Ian

This article contains basic SQL CREATE TABLE statements that beginners can use to create basic tables for their database projects.

SQL Server ROWCOUNT_BIG()

November 21, 2020 by Ian

In SQL Server, you can use the ROWCOUNT_BIG() system function to return the number of rows affected by the last T-SQL statement.

It works exactly the same as @@ROWCOUNT, except that ROWCOUNT_BIG() returns its result as a bigint.

12 Commonly Used SQL Operators

December 2, 2020November 20, 2020 by Ian

In SQL, an operator is a special character or keyword specifying an action that is performed on one or more expressions.

SQL operators are an integral part of SQL, and they enable us to write queries that return relevant results.

In this article, I present 12 of the most commonly used SQL operators when writing SQL queries.

SQL Server SHOWPLAN_ALL

December 6, 2025November 19, 2020 by Ian

In SQL Server, you can use the SET SHOWPLAN_ALL statement to return the query plan for a given T-SQL statement. The query plan displays detailed information about how the statement is executed, as well as estimates of the resource requirements for the statements.

SQL Server SHOWPLAN_TEXT

December 6, 2025November 19, 2020 by Ian

In SQL Server, you can use the SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT statement to return the query plan for a T-SQL statement. This contains detailed information about how the statement is executed.

Database Mail Tutorials

November 19, 2020 by Ian

I’ve written quite a number of tutorials for using Database Mail, and I’ve created this article to list them all in one place.

I first included these links at the bottom of How to Send Emails from SQL Server (T-SQL), but I thought it might be helpful to move them to their own article as a quick-reference.

What Do I Need to Run SQL?

November 27, 2020November 18, 2020 by Ian

I get it. You’re trying to learn SQL, but they won’t even tell you the most fundamental part – what you need to run SQL!

You’ve got the SQL code… but where do you actually run it? What software program do you need before you can run your SQL query against a database?

If that’s you, all is about to be revealed!