3 Ways to use ALL in SQL Server

Posted on September 28, 2020December 8, 2020 by Ian

You might be familiar with the ALL option in SQL Server. Perhaps you’ve used it along with the UNION operator to include any duplicates that might be returned in the result set.

But did you know that ALL can also be used in two other contexts?

ALL can be used in the following three contexts:

As an argument to the SELECT clause.
As an argument to the UNION clause.
As a logical operator when comparing a scalar value with a single-column set of values.

Examples of each of these contexts follows.

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SQL Server ALL Operator Explained

Posted on September 27, 2020September 28, 2020 by Ian

In SQL Server, the ALL operator can be used with a subquery to compare a scalar value with a single-column set of values returned by the subquery.

It’s also true that the SELECT clause and UNION operator both accept an ALL argument, although this usage has a different purpose (allows duplicates in the result set).

Below are examples of using the ALL operator with a subquery.

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SQL Server ANSI_NULLS Explained

Posted on September 25, 2020June 8, 2023 by Ian

In SQL Server, the ANSI_NULLS setting allows you to specify how NULL values are treated in queries.

More specifically, it allows you to specify ISO compliant behaviour of the Equal To (=) and Not Equal To (<>) comparison operators when they are used with NULL values.

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How to Find a Database’s ANSI_NULLS Setting in SQL Server (T-SQL)

Posted on September 25, 2020September 25, 2020 by Ian

SQL Server has an ANSI_NULLS setting that determines how NULL values are evaluated when compared to another value with the Equals (=) and Not Equal To (<>) comparison operators.

While it’s true that you can change the ANSI_NULLS setting at the session level (using SET ANSI_NULLS), each database also has its own ANSI_NULLS setting.

You can check your database to see whether its ANSI_NULLS setting is ON or OFF.

To do this with T-SQL, you can either use the sys.databases catalog view or the DATABASEPROPERTYEX() function.

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Check the Status of the Database Mail Queues in SQL Server (T-SQL)

Posted on September 23, 2020September 23, 2020 by Ian

In SQL Server, you can use the sysmail_help_status_sp stored procedure on the msdb database to check the status of the Database Mail queues.

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Return a List of Emails Sent from SQL Server Database Mail (T-SQL)

Posted on September 22, 2020September 22, 2020 by Ian

If you use Database Mail in SQL Server, you can use the sysmail_sentitems view to return a list of all emails that Database Mail has sent.

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Check the Status of All Database Mail Messages in SQL Server (T-SQL)

Posted on September 22, 2020September 22, 2020 by Ian

If you use Database Mail in SQL Server, you can use the sysmail_allitems view to check the status of all emails that Database Mail has processed.

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Find Out Why an Email Failed to Send in SQL Server (T-SQL)

Posted on September 21, 2020September 21, 2020 by Ian

If you’re trying to send email using Database Mail in SQL Server, but it fails to send, you can check the sysmail_event_log view to see why it failed.

The sysmail_event_log view returns one row for each Windows or SQL Server message returned by the Database Mail system. By “message”, I don’t mean the actual mail message. I mean a message such as the error message that explains why the mail failed.

You can also use the sysmail_configure_sp stored procedure to determine what types of messages are logged.

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