Voice of the DBA

Tag: SQLNewBlogger

Delete a 2020 GitHub Repository–#SQLNewBlogger

Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers.

I have a lot of GitHub repos, sometimes just set up to test something. Recently I wanted to delete one, but most of the docs on the Internet were out of date. So I wrote this one.

The help docs say to find the Danger Zone for your repo. I didn’t see this as an item under Settings. Instead, I see this.

However, the docs talk about access, so I decided to check the “Manage Access” item on the left. I see options, and since this is a public repo, I see the “Manage” link.

This actually scrolls me down, which I might have figured out, but in my view, I didn’t see any obvious idea that there was more below the settings. Instead, I find the Danger Zone.

Here I can click “Delete this repository” and it’s gone. Well, it’s gone if I confirm I know bad things happen here.

Be super sure and super careful with this. Be sure you know what happens. If you do this to a private repo, forks go away. That could be really bad in an org.

SQLNewBlogger

If you build software, employers want to know how you build software. This post took me 10 minutes to write, and gives someone interviewing me the chance to ask me questions. How, why, etc.

You can do this for your own reasons.

July 1, 2020
Where are Sequences?–#SQLNewBlogger

Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers.

I created a few sequence objects lately to test some things. Since I tended to create and use these, I knew the names. Coming back a few days later, with new queries, I wondered where these were stored. This post shows a few things I learned.

SSMS

Where would you think Sequences are stored. They are a weird object, with the NEXT VALUE FOR syntax being used. This feels DDL-ish. However, if we look at the Object Explorer, there aren’t a lot of choices here.

The area that seems most promising is Programmability, and when I check here, I see them.

If I look at the properties, I can see the settings, which is good. I especially like seeing the current value.

T-SQL

Since this is an object, it ought to be query-able from T-SQL. sys.objects is a good place to start, and when I query, I see this:

Good, but not a lot of information here. With SQLPrompt, I do see there is another choice, sys.sequences.

If I query this DMV, I now see the same information from sys.objects at the top of the result set.

If I scroll, I can see more of the metadata I am looking for. Last_used_value is important, though I wonder what caching does here. A post for another day.

ADS

Azure Data Studio has an Object Explorer, but it’s not as useful, as you can see. No options to get data. In ADS, I’d query the DMV.

SQLNewBlogger

This was a quick post, as I tried to find information. Once I did, which took just a minute, I decided to spend 5-10 minutes assembling this post and trying the various tools to get information.

A quick look at how I find the information. You could focus a small post in this way on some learning effort you make.

June 17, 2020
Creating a New Sequence–#SQLNewBlogger
I wrote about sequences in an editorial recently and decided to start using them. Creating one turned out to be surprisingly easy.

I had a table I’d been logging some data in, with a PK, but no natural key or identity bound to the table. Instead, this was low volume (1x per day) and I just manually adjusted the PK value.

I decided to create a sequence. As I did this, I found it interesting and consulted the BOL page for some ideas on the options.

The first part is simple. A name and datatype.
```
CREATE SEQUENCE dbo.MyKey as INT
```
That makes sense. Next, I need a starting value. In my case, I had 7 values in the table, so I added this:
```
START WITH 8
```
That gets me what I need. The last part I added was the INCREMENT BY clause. In my case, 1 works fine. My code:

The last query is how you get the next value. The NEXT VALUE FOR phrase can be used in various places, but that’s for another day.

If I needed to bind values, I could use the MINVALUE or MAXVALUE, which I’ll look at in a different post. I could also control caching and cycle values if I needed to.

SQLNewBlogger

I actually started a post on binding this to a column and then decided to add this short post in about 5 minutes.
June 3, 2020
Custom Quarantine PoSh Prompt
Since I’ve been quarantined at home and working in my office, every day is the same. I can’t go to the gym, or coach, or go to the restaurant, or much of anything. As a result, I regularly, forget what day it is.

Yes, it’s on my phone, but that’s not always open and visible. It’s on my watch, but I have to swing up my wrist and hope it lights up. Or reorient my wrist to see it.

I have Rainmeter running, which is nice, and I have a summary in the upper corner of my screen, but often I have something covering this.

The time is in the toolbar, but I sometimes hide toolbars to record things. Basically, I forget what day it is and I’m looking for a few hints I can use to make this easier. As I play with PowerShell regularly, I thought it would be good to update my prompt slightly.

Plus, it would be good PoSh practice.

Setting a profile. I’ve seen a few posts on customizing the prompt, and they all say I need a function, called prompt, in my profile. I found this article, which gave me a good idea. Put the time in the prompt.

I then had to figure out how to get to my profie. It turns out “notepad $PROFILE” in a PoSh prompt will get you there. If you don’t have a profile, you’ll see this:

Say yes, and then add some code. I had to look up the Format options and experiment a bit to decide how I wanted things to look.
```
function prompt {
        $lastResult = Invoke-Expression '$?'
        if (!$lastResult) {
                Write-Host "Last command exited with error status." -ForegroundColor Red
        }
        Write-Output "${msg}$(
                # Show time as 12:05PM and day of week
                Get-Date -Format "dddd HH:mm"
                # Show current directory
        ) $(Get-Location)> "  
}
```
I saved this and now when I get a new PoSh prompt, I get this:

Now I easily know the day and time when I’m working in a PowerShell terminal. This also shows up in my Visual Studio Code terminal as well, since that’s just a PoSh environment.

SQLNewBlogger

This was a quick thing I did in about 5 minutes to customize my environment, and help me be more productive. A happy employee works smoother.

I decided to show off how I did this and spend a quick 10 minutes writing down and documenting what I did.
May 29, 2020