Improvements to the TRIM(), LTRIM() and RTRIM() Functions in SQL Server 2022

The release of SQL Server 2022 in November 2022 introduced a bunch of new functionality, including some enhancements to the TRIM(), LTRIM() and RTRIM() functions.

The enhancements in the LTRIM() and RTRIM() functions are different to those in the TRIM() function. Below is a quick overview of the enhancements to these functions, along with examples.

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Introduction to the GENERATE_SERIES() Function in SQL Server

In SQL Server, the GENERATE_SERIES() function is a relational operator that returns a series of values between a given start and stop point. These are returned in a single-column table.

Although the GENERATE_SERIES() function only works with numeric values, we can combine it with other functions to create a series of dates.

The GENERATE_SERIES() function was introduced in SQL Server 2022 (16.x) and requires the compatibility level to be at least 160.

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Understanding the DATE_BUCKET() Function in SQL Server

The release of SQL Server 2022 came with the introduction of the DATE_BUCKET() function.

The DATE_BUCKET() function allows us to arrange data into groups that represent fixed intervals of time. It returns the date/time value that corresponds to the start of each date/time bucket, as defined by the arguments passed to the function.

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Understanding the TRIM() Function in SQL Server

In SQL Server, we can use the TRIM() function to remove leading and trailing characters from a given string.

A common use case is to remove whitespace from the start and end of the string, but we can also specify other characters to remove.

Also, as from SQL Server 2022, we can specify which side of the string to remove the characters from (i.e. leading, trailing, or both).

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How NULL Values Can Affect your Results When Using the COUNT() Function in SQL

The SQL COUNT() function is a handy tool for telling us how many rows would be returned in a query. We can pass a column name to the function or we can pass the asterisk (*) wildcard to indicate all columns.

If a column contains NULL values, we could get different results, depending on whether we use the column name or the asterisk (*).

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