Tag: functions

How to Check your SQL Server Version

Posted on by Ian

SQL Server, or more specifically, Transact-SQL, includes a number of built in functions, including the @@version scalar function. The @@version function is a configuration function, which returns system and build information for the current installation of SQL Server. You can run this function at any time to find out which version of SQL Server you’re using.

Here’s how:

SELECT @@version;

When running that in a command line interface, you might see results that look like this:

Microsoft SQL Server 2017 (RTM-CU6) (KB4101464) - 14.0.3025.34 (X64) 
	Apr  9 2018 18:00:41 
	Copyright (C) 2017 Microsoft Corporation
	Developer Edition (64-bit) on Linux (Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS)

1 row(s) returned

Executed in 1 ms

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How to Change the Collation of a SQL Server Database using T-SQL

Posted on by Ian

This is a quick article to demonstrate how to use Transact-SQL to change the collation of a database in SQL Server.

Here’s the basic code:

USE master;  
GO
 
ALTER DATABASE Solutions  
COLLATE French_CI_AS ;  
GO

This first changes to the master database, then we use the ALTER DATABASE statement to change the collation of the Solutions database to French_CI_AS collation.
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How to Create a Table in SQL Server using a Query

Posted on by Ian

To create a table in SQL Server using a query:

  1. In the SQL Server Management Studio, click the New Query button on the toolbar
  2. Type or paste a CREATE TABLE script (example below)
  3. Click the ! Execute button on the toolbar

Here’s an example:

Screenshot of SSMS with the New Query button highlighted.
Clicking the “New Query” button on the SSMS toolbar opens a new query. Clicking “Execute” runs the query.

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What is a View?

Posted on by Ian

In the world of databases, a view is a query that’s stored on a database.

The term can also be used to refer to the result set of a stored query.

To create a view, you write a query, then save it as a view.

To run a view, you query it, just like you’d query a table. The difference is that, the view itself is a query. So when you query the view, you’re effectively querying a query.  This enables you to save complex queries as views, then run simple queries against those views.

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