Tag: QuickTips

I love SQL Prompt, and think it’s a great productivity tool. Even before I worked at Red Gate, I love the tool and had a copy before Red Gate bought the technology from the original developer. Recently I’ve run into a few people that weren’t aware of some of the ways in which it can help you. This is a quick look at one of the ways I use SQL Prompt.

Custom Aliases

SQL Prompt can automatically create aliases for tables. However, as I’ve worked on different systems, I’ve often found that development teams like to use specific aliases consistently to ensure that everyone can easily read the code and understand which tables are being queried.

Suppose I decide that I have these tables:

• Product
• Product Details
• Orders
• OrderDetails

I often use these tables in queries in my system, and I want to have consistent aliases. Right now, I could have these two queries with the default SQL Prompt alias settings:

Note that the Orders table has “O” as an alias in the first query, but “O2” as an alias in the second query. This isn’t an issue when I’m writing a query, but when I revisit this code in a month or two and add an enhancement, it can be tricky.

What I’d like to do is ensure I had consistent aliases for my tables, so that every developer always knows that “o” is Orders and “od” is OrderDetails. I want these aliases

• Product – P
• Product Details – PD
• Orders – O
• OrderDetails – OD

I can do that in SQL Prompt with custom aliases. Let me go back to the Options dialog and select Aliases.

I’ve already added an item in the Custom aliases section for the product table. However I can click New (highlighted above) and I’ll get a little dialog.

I repeat this process for each table, and soon I have all four entered.

Now I can rewrite my query. I start typing each table, and once it’s highlighted, click “tab”. When I get done, I have:

A quick way to ensure that all of your tables are consistently aliased, no matter in which order you type things.

You can see a complete list of SQL Prompt tips at Redgate.

I love SQL Prompt, and think it’s a great productivity tool. Even before I worked at Red Gate, I love the tool and had a copy before Red Gate bought the technology from the original developer. Recently I’ve run into a few people that weren’t aware of some of the ways in which it can help you. This is a quick look at one of the ways I use SQL Prompt.

Aliases

Aliases are used to make code more readable, and shorten the amount of code that one needs to write. Typically we use these to give a short name to a table. Instead of:

We could use an alias. Note the “p” after the table below and the change in the column list.

Automated Aliases

SQL Prompt can automate aliases for me. Under the Options dialog, there is an Aliases selection (shown below).

Note that I’ve checked the “Assign Aliases” box. This is not checked by default, but once I check it, I get aliases. Let me write a query.

I’m about to select my Orders table from the Prompt drop down. Once I click Tab, I’ll get this:

SQL Prompt has added the alias for me. It’s a lower case “o”. If I add another table:

I hit tab at this point and I get:

I have a new alias of “o2”. Not terribly creative, but it works.

I have some options for changing these around. Suppose I want to make these upper case to stand out. I can change this in options:

Now I add a third table:

I hit tab:

My new alias is an upper case “P” for the Product table. That gives me a bit of differentiation for my tables.

I, however, do not like the “AS” keyword. I typically just space my alias after the table. I can change that in options:

I’ve unchecked the box and now I add a new table.

When I hit Tab, I’ll get a new alias, upper case, but no AS.

These are not terribly intuitive aliases, but this does at least clean up your code a bit, so when you see all the column names they aren’t spread way to the right with table names like “ProductDescriptions”.

You can see a complete list of SQL Prompt tips at Redgate.