1. Working with Long Strings by Jeff Moden
Rainbow Lightning
Working with Long Strings
by Jeff Moden
SPID Lightning Rounds, Detroit, Mi
12 September 2013

2. Your Speaker - Jeff Moden
17 years experience working with SQL Server
Mostly Self Taught
One of Leading Posters on SQLServerCentral.com
More than 32,000 posts (heh… some are even useful)
30+ articles on the “Black Arts” of T-SQL
Member since 2003
SQL Server MVP 2008 thru 2013
Winner of the “Exceptional DBA” award for 2011
Lead Application DBA, Data Architect, and SQL Mentor for Proctor Financial, Inc.
SQL Server is both my profession and my hobby
(Yeah, I know… I need to get a life ;-)
Working with Long Strings
12 September © Copyright by Jeff Moden - All Rights Reserved

3. Agenda
I call it “Rainbow Lightning” because it will allow us to see the “End of the Rainbow” where long strings are concerned.
The Problem with Viewing Long Dynamic SQL
An Easy Fix
A Convenient Function
Wrapping Long T-SQL Literals for Readability
Working with Long Strings
12 September © Copyright by Jeff Moden - All Rights Reserved

4. The Problem with Viewing Long Dynamic SQL

5. The Display Problem To summarize the problem DEMOs
Print works fine but is limited to something less than 8,000 characters (4,000 if using NVARCHAR)
Display to the Grid removes all formatting and converts to a single line
DEMOs
(See attached files)
Working with Long Strings
12 September © Copyright by Jeff Moden - All Rights Reserved

6. Sloshing

7. What is “Sloshing”? It’s the Reverse of Concatenation
Allows splitting up of long strings for display/readability purposes
Working with Long Strings
12 September © Copyright by Jeff Moden - All Rights Reserved

8. Examples Working with Long Strings
--===== The command must appear as a single line to xp_CmdShell -- (There's a TAB character between the empty double quotes) -- but it doesn't fit the screen (indicated by the dashed lines) EXEC xp_cmdshell 'sqlcmd -E -S "VAIO" -h-1 -s" " -W -Q "SELECT * FROM master.sys.master_files" -o c:\temp\QueryResults.txt' ; ===== This is one way to fix the problem but it does take some doing... VARCHAR(8000); = 'sqlcmd -E -S "VAIO" -h-1 -s" " -W -Q ' + '"SELECT * FROM master.sys.master_files" -o ' + 'c:\temp\QueryResults.txt' EXEC --===== The command must appear as a single line to xp_CmdShell but -- we can "split" the line up a lot more easily with "Sloshing". -- A backslash followed by presing the enter key is call "SLOSHING" EXEC xp_cmdshell 'sqlcmd -E -S "VAIO" -h-1 -s" " -W -Q "SELECT * FROM mas\ ter.sys.master_files" -o c:\temp\QueryResults.txt'
Working with Long Strings
12 September © Copyright by Jeff Moden - All Rights Reserved

9. Quick Review
Learned quick an easy way to display ALL of the Dynamic SQL using an XML trick.
Created a ShowBigString function to make it even easier.
Learned how to “Slosh” (unconcatenate) long strings for readability without having to create a variable, etc.
Working with Long Strings
12 September © Copyright by Jeff Moden - All Rights Reserved

10. See me at the end of tonight’s presentations.
Q’n’A
See me at the end of tonight’s presentations.

11. Working with Long Strings by Jeff Moden
Rainbow Lightning
Working with Long Strings
by Jeff Moden
Thanks for Listening
SPID Lightning Rounds, Detroit, Mi
12 September 2013