SQL Server

workspaces in sql mgmt studio

Alex Bransky — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:46:09 GMT

How is it that you still can't save workspaces in SQL Server Management Studio as of version 2008? It seems like such a simple thing to implement. Quite often I create a bunch of different queries during a short period that are specific to a task I'm working on and that won't be needed once the task is completed, and rather than having to save each one it would be nice if I could just save a workspace file that knows which queries were open.

attaching adventureworks2008 on full version of sql server

Alex Bransky — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:39:05 GMT

For anybody that bought the SQL Server 2008 Self-Paced Training book for 70-433, if you are running a full version of SQL Server 2008 rather than the express edition, you will have problems attaching the AdventureWorks2008 database (file activation error). The trick is to use a SQL command, like so:

USE [master]
GO
CREATE DATABASE [AdventureWorks2008] ON
( FILENAME = N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQL2008\MSSQL\DATA\AdventureWorks2008_Data.mdf' ),
( FILENAME = N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQL2008\MSSQL\DATA\AdventureWorks2008_Log.ldf' ),
FILEGROUP Documents CONTAINS FILESTREAM (NAME = Documents, FILENAME=N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQL2008\MSSQL\DATA\Documents')
FOR ATTACH
GO

tinyint surprise

Alex Bransky — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:05:03 GMT

I just discovered something rather surprising. If you return a tinyint from a stored procedure as part of a dataset, and bind that dataset to a dataview, and then do something like this:

<asp:Label runat="server" id="statusLabel" Text='<%# GetStatusText( (int)DataBinder.Eval(Container, "DataItem.status")) %>'>
</asp:Label>

You will get an error about an invalid cast. If the stored procedure returns an int instead of tinyint, it works just fine. How can ASP.Net 3.5 not be able to cast from a tinyint (or whatever its C# equivalent is) to an int??

activerecord and executereader exceptions

Alex Bransky — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:46:45 GMT

About once a day I was getting the following error from an ASP.Net web page that uses ActiveRecord:

Exception Details: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: A transport-level error has occurred when sending the request to the server. (provider: TCP Provider, error: 0 - An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.)

I would subsequently get this error upon refreshing the page:

Exception Details: System.InvalidOperationException: ExecuteReader requires an open and available Connection. The connection's current state is closed.

I finally figured out that the problem occurs when the database is restored. The connections in the IIS application pool do not get destroyed when the database is restored, so when ActiveRecord (nHibernate) tries to reuse the connections it fails. This doesn't happen to me when I'm not using ActiveRecord, so I'm not sure if this is a bug with ActiveRecord or a problem with the way I've set up the data access layer.

ssas: define reference and materialize

Alex Bransky — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:25:34 GMT

Apparently you have to watch out when you select Materialize in a referenced dimension in SSAS 2005. I just ran into a situation where data was getting duplicated for no good reason, and unchecking Materialize fixed it.

http://www.biblogs.com/2006/12/23/materialize-option-in-a-reference-dimension/

granularity error in SSAS MDX drillthrough query

Alex Bransky — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:44:14 GMT

I was trying to create an MDX drillthrough this morning in my SSAS 2005 cube, and I got this error:

Errors from the SQL query module: The attribute 'Applicant Name' in the dimension 'Dim Candidate' is outside the granularity of the measure group 'Fact Requisitions' and cannot be returned as a column.

I only got one result from Google for that error message and it wasn't helpful at all. After trying a million different things with partitions and actions and whatnot, I finally figured out the problem: I was trying to return drillthrough data from a fact table other than the one containing the default measure. Once I threw in a measure (in the SELECT part of the query, not the RETURN) from the non-default fact table, everything worked great!

adding a fact table to a SSAS 2005 cube

Alex Bransky — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:28:08 GMT

So you're trying to add a fact table to a cube that you've already created, but you can't figure out how to do so without recreating the cube from scratch? Here's what you do: In the Measures pane in the Cube Structure tab, right-click and select New Measure Group. Then select the fact table, and voila! (This is assuming you've already put the fact table in the data source view.)

addendum: Looks like the standard way to add a dimension to the cube is to right-click on the cube name in the Dimensions window in the Cube Structure tab and select Add Cube Dimension.

SSAS cube: "attribute key not found" error

Alex Bransky — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 23:05:02 GMT

I just spent over an hour trying to figure out why my data tables were correct but I was getting an error about an attribute key not being found (i.e. an unlinkable foreign key). I finally figured out that processing one dimension at a time before processing the cube can get fix whatever is out of sync. [Right-click on the dimension in Solution Explorer to process it separately.]

SQL Server 2005 splash screen

Alex Bransky — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:38:06 GMT

Is the SQL Server 2005 splash screen supposed to look like Arkanoid or like Tetris?

fastest way to show SQL data in a web page

Alex Bransky — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 23:45:09 GMT

I'm curious what people think is that fastest way to show SQL Server data in a web page. Assuming you create the virtual web in IIS yourself, I'm hoping somebody knows of something that lets you create an xml file with connection settings and a query file, then the product automagically puts the data in a grid on the web page. Granted once you're used to Visual Studio it doesn't take terribly long to do such a thing, but I'd still like something faster, maybe something that can automagically create graphs too.