SQL Server/T-SQL

IANADBA2

Michael Cook — Tue, 25 May 2004 14:30:00 GMT

Luciano Evaristo passes along a cool tip on how to get an average from a datetime field:

To workaround this, just change the SQL statement to SELECT CAST(AVG(CAST(MyTable.MyDateTimeField AS float)) AS datetime) FROM MyTable and things will work properly.

Cool tip!

Dealing With Stubborn Sql Server Log Files

Michael Cook — Mon, 24 May 2004 19:22:00 GMT

Normally when you backup a database the log files are automatically truncated, however recently we had a development database that had racked up a 9GB log file! Despite nightly backup's the log file wouldn't clear.

In order to shrink it down to a manageable size I ran the following commands from Query Analyzer:

BACKUP LOG DBName WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY
GO
DBCC SHRINKFILE(LogFileName,SizeInMB)
GO

Now all I have to do is figure out why it get so large in the first place.

IANADBA

Michael Cook — Mon, 24 May 2004 11:57:00 GMT

I am not a dba, which is probably why I found this page on Dynamic SQL eye-opening and informative. If you are not a fully qualified dba, but find yourself writing stored procedures, it's a must read (or a re-read if you have already seen it).