 | Making a SQL Server Database Read-Only
There are many situations where it is important that users are unable to modify the contents of a database. For example, if data is to be migrated to another server or for reporting purposes. This tip explains how to set a database to a read-only mode. |
| Resetting SQL Server Identity Columns
Microsoft SQL Server identity columns provide a useful way to automatically generate consecutive numeric values for identifying rows. During software testing, IDs may be generated and then deleted. Afterwards, you may want to reset the number sequence. |
| Generating Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs) in SQL Server
In an earlier article I described some of the purposes and details of globally unique identifiers and their use within the C# programming language. When storing GUIDs in SQL Server databases, the server itself can be used to generate these unique IDs. |
| Padding Numbers Using Transact-SQL
Numeric codes held in a database as integer values or other numeric types will sometimes need to be represented visually in different formats. A common request is to pad a short number with leading zeroes to achieve a specific string length. |
| Changing the SQL Server Century Cut-Off Date
The work undertaken to resolve the year 2000 problem taught developers that they should be using four-digit dates. However, as integration with legacy systems is still required, so are two-digit dates. SQL Server provides a century cut-off point to help. |
| Moving SQL Server Database Files
Over time the requirements of a SQL Server system can change. Sometimes this will necessitate the relocation of databases from one disk or server to another. This can be easily achieved using the standard SQL functions to detach and attach databases. |
| SQL Server DateTime Formatting
Usually the formatting of a DateTime value into a more readable date and time is dealt with by the client application. However, there are some situations were it is useful to convert a DateTime into a formatted character string within a SQL statement. |
| Retrieving the Date From a SQL Server DateTime
The SQL Server DATETIME and SMALLDATETIME data types are ideal for storing date and time information. Often you will want to extract the date part of such a value with the time part set to midnight. This article describes several ways to achieve this. |
| Allowing Remote Access to SQL Server Express
If SQL Server Express Edition is installed using default setup options access is only permitted from the local machine. This tip explains how to enable remote access to databases via TCP/IP or named pipes to allow the creation of centralised data stores. |