You are looking to find a way to find the first non-null value from a list of fields. In this post, we look at SQL COALESCE - a wonderfully useful tool that helps to solve that problem. To help demonstrate this, we will talk about a hypothetical scenario where a number of customer leads have been added to a table from different sources and the consistency of data found in … [Read more...] about Using SQL COALESCE to Find the First Non-NULL Value
All Articles
How to Take a Backup of a Table in MySQL
Sometimes, there is a requirement to make a backup of a table in MySQL. For instance, there could be a data update planned, schema change needed or that it is necessary to work with a copy of a table, perhaps for some report. A possible approach to this is to run a full backup of the database to call upon if something goes wrong. This is feasible but sometimes not practical. … [Read more...] about How to Take a Backup of a Table in MySQL
SQL Server 2016 New Features – Multiple TempDB Files Configured at Server Install
Configuring multiple tempdb files is not a new feature in SQL Server and has been a best practice for sometime to help ease and prevent tempdb contention which helps to increase the scalability of your SQL Server installation. Before SQL Server 2016, this was a task which needed to be carried out after the installation but one of the new features of SQL Server 2016 is the … [Read more...] about SQL Server 2016 New Features – Multiple TempDB Files Configured at Server Install
SQL Server 2016 New Features – Dynamic Data Masking
Data security is always a hot subject and anything that database software vendors can do to enhance the security of data is usually welcome. One of the new features of SQL Server 2016 is the introduction of Dynamic Data Masking. As it says on the tin, the data is masked which prevents non-privileged users from seeing it. With Dynamic Data Masking in SQL Server 2016, … [Read more...] about SQL Server 2016 New Features – Dynamic Data Masking
SQL Server 2016 New Features – Live Query Statistics
SQL Server 2016 Live Query Statistics provide a way to look into the execution plan to see what parts of the query are currently running. The advantage of this feature is that for a slow query, instead of having to wait for it to complete before the execution plan is available, it's now possible to view the execution plan in real time. Sometimes execution plans can be … [Read more...] about SQL Server 2016 New Features – Live Query Statistics