Microsoft SQL Server

Amazingly, I just spent ten minutes searching the web for a list of all of the built-in SQL Server stored procedures. I figured that's reason enough to post a link for the next poor sucker who has to do the same. So here it is: Microsoft's MSDN complete list / reference of all of the native / built-in / system stored procedures within the SQL Server database.

The scenario is that you have a gigantic SQL Server 2000 table--gigantic not necessarily because it has a lot of rows, but gigantic because it has a ton of columns. I've inherited a couple tables like this on different projects, tables with two or three hundred columns. (Don't look at me, I didn't create these tables.) It's not uncommon to need to add a new index to these kinds of ridiculous tables to cover a query. So you go to try and add your new index and you get an error like this:

One of my clients had a table that has been mysteriously losing rows. This is a table that does not have any official applications written to delete rows from it, and rows should never be deleted from it. No one can figure out how the missing rows are being deleted. So I added an INSTEAD OF DELETE trigger that raises an error if someone tries to delete a row. It seems to work great.

Here is my method for achieving string padding in the Microsoft SQL Server T-SQL language. Unfortunately T-SQL does not offer functions like Oracle PL/SQL's LPAD() and RPAD() and C#'s PadLeft() and PadRight() functions. However, you can achieve the same thing using the T-SQL REPLICATE and LEN functions.

If your scheduled SQL Server job fails at 2:00AM when no one's checking, will anyone know, or is it like a tree falling silently in a forest?