Mystic Slayer's Bloggie

Today I was doing some tasks on SQL Server 2005 with SP2. I had some problems with adding jobs and getting the following error message:

Unable to cast object of type 'Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.SimpleObjectKey' to type 'Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Agent.JobObjectKey'.

The issue was using client tools without SP2. You can't add jobs to a SQL Server 2005 with SP2 with SQL Server 2005 RTM Client Tools.

Timestamp in SQL Server:

1) The SQL Server timestamp data type has nothing to do with times or dates. SQL Server timestamps are binary numbers that indicate the relative sequence in which data modifications took place in a database. The timestamp data type was originally implemented to support the SQL Server recovery algorithms.

2) It further states Never use timestamp columns in keys, especially primary keys, because the timestamp value changes every time the row is modified.

For a customer we made some changes. And the situation is as follows. We exported the data to excel. Multiple tabels are exported. We changed the data in the excel file and the customer validated the data. We also did export the timetamp with the data. Why? Because we had to import it again to the database. If a Timestamp changed, we should not update the data from the excel file. That's why.

Problem situation:

Because a timestamp isn't a varchar, or numeric value, but a binary(8) value we had to convert it. Because we import the data by SSIS back into the database. But the data we imported is from a flat text file. So every column was read as a DT_STR by SSIS, and timestamp in the stored procedure was a datatype of Timestamp. So we did a comparison of a varchar against a timestamp. Well that situation didn't work out that well.

So what we did was to change the parameter of the stored procedure to varchar. Well SQL Server can't handle a comparison of varchar against timestamp inside the stored procedure. Of course, so we did try it to convert it to a varbinary(8) or binary(8) and then validate it against the timestamp. Well that didn't work out that well.

declare @timestamp varbinary(8)
set @timestamp = CONVERT(varbinary(8), '0x0000000001F4AD88')
print @timestamp

returned: 0x3078303030303030

declare @timestamp varbinary(8)
set @timestamp = CONVERT(varbinary(8), 0x0000000001F4AD88)

print @timestamp

returned: 0x0000000001F4AD88

That comparison didn't work well. So I had to figure an other way to validate on timestamp. When I almost lost my hope I wrote a function in SQL Server.

create function [dbo].[sp_hexadecimal] ( @var varbinary(255) )
returns varchar(255)
as

begin
      declare @charval varchar(255)
      declare @i int
      declare @length int
      declare @hex char(16)

      select @charval = '0x'
      select @i = 1
      select @length = datalength(@var)
      select @hex = '0123456789abcdef'

      while (@i <= @length)
      begin
            declare @tempint int
            declare @firstint int
            declare @secondint int

            select @tempint = convert(int, substring(@var,@i,1))
            select @firstint = floor(@tempint/16)
            select @secondint = @tempint - (@firstint*16)
            select @charval = @charval +
            substring(@hex, @firstint+1, 1) +
            substring(@hex, @secondint+1, 1)

            select @i = @i + 1
      end

return ( @charval )
end

So what I did was the other. I managed to validate the data on the other way.

it did the trick...

Well I was searching for a Stored Procedure that you can use for reindexing and updating stats, etc.

I didn't find any nice procedures that gave me the solution I needed, so I've read some posts by google, and made the following procedure

This procedure will loop through all the tables and all indexes and shall Reindex them. When every index on every table is reindexed it will update all the stats on the database.

Of course you can choose to change the fill index from 80 to any other valid percentage.

 
 
CREATE PROCEDURE spUtil_ReIndexDatabase_UpdateStats
AS
BEGIN
-- SET NOCOUNT ON added to prevent extra result sets from
-- interfering with SELECT statements.
SET NOCOUNT ON;
DECLARE @MyTable VARCHAR(255)
DECLARE myCursor
CURSOR FOR
SELECT table_name
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_type = 'base table'
OPEN myCursor
FETCH NEXT
FROM myCursor INTO @MyTable
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
PRINT 'Reindexing Table:  ' + @MyTable
DBCC DBREINDEX(@MyTable, '', 80)
FETCH NEXT
FROM myCursor INTO @MyTable
END
CLOSE myCursor
DEALLOCATE myCursor
EXEC SP_UPDATESTATS
GO
END
 

Well alot of database administrators forget to truncate their database daily before backing the database up. Well I don’t understand why they are forgetting it. Because it’s a simple procedure you can add before you backup the database. Today I received a database of 5 gigabytes and with a log file of yes you don’t how of 21 gigabytes. So I was using the standard features of SQL Server 2000, but this tool does not his work with the normal truncating options of the database.

After a good search I found out it isn’t that much fun to truncate the database with a procedure. After a search on google it was easy to find the simplest script for database maintenance. I used this script and it really did work. Below you can find out yourself:

 
 
SET NOCOUNT ON 
 
DECLARE @LogicalFileName sysname, @MaxMinutes INT, @NewSize INT 
 
-- *** MAKE SURE TO CHANGE THE NEXT 4 LINES WITH YOUR CRITERIA. 
 
*** USE [DATABASE] -- This is the name of the database -- for which the log will be shrunk.
SELECT @LogicalFileName = 'LOGFILENAME', -- Use sp_helpfile to identify the logical file -- name that you want to shrink.
@MaxMinutes = 10, -- Limit on time allowed to wrap log.
@NewSize = 10 -- in MB -- Setup / initialize
DECLARE @OriginalSize INT 
 
SELECT @OriginalSize = SIZE -- in 8K pages FROM sysfiles WHERE name = @LogicalFileName 
 
SELECT 'Original Size of ' + DB_NAME() + ' LOG is ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),@OriginalSize) + ' 8K pages or ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),(@OriginalSize*8/1024)) + 'MB' FROM sysfiles WHERE name = @LogicalFileName 
 
CREATE TABLE DummyTrans (DummyColumn CHAR (8000) not null) -- Wrap log and truncate it. 
 
DECLARE @Counter INT, @StartTime DATETIME, @TruncLog VARCHAR(255) 
 
SELECT @StartTime = GETDATE(), @TruncLog = 'BACKUP LOG ['+ DB_NAME() + '] WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY' -- Try an initial shrink. 
 
DBCC SHRINKFILE (@LogicalFileName, @NewSize) EXEC (@TruncLog) -- Wrap the log if necessary. 
 
WHILE @MaxMinutes > DATEDIFF (mi, @StartTime, GETDATE()) -- time has not expired
AND @OriginalSize = (SELECT SIZE FROM sysfiles WHERE name = @LogicalFileName) -- the log has not shrunk
AND (@OriginalSize * 8 /1024) > @NewSize -- The value passed in for new size is smaller than the current size. 
 
BEGIN -- Outer loop. 
 
SELECT @Counter = 0 WHILE ((@Counter > @OriginalSize / 16) AND (@Counter > 50000))
BEGIN -- update
INSERT DummyTrans VALUES ('Fill Log') -- Because it is a char field it inserts 8000 bytes.
DELETE DummyTrans SELECT @Counter = @Counter + 1 END -- update
EXEC (@TruncLog) -- See if a trunc of the log shrinks it.
END -- outer loop
SELECT 'Final Size of ' + DB_NAME() + ' LOG is ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),SIZE) + ' 8K pages or ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(30),(SIZE*8/1024)) + 'MB' FROM sysfiles WHERE name = @LogicalFileName
DROP TABLE DummyTrans PRINT '*** Perform a full database backup ***'
SET NOCOUNT OFF
 

Voila, fill in the database name and the logfile name and you’re done. Run the script within query analyser or other usefull tool. I used this script with SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. This script can also be used with SQL Server 7. So with the major databases of Microsoft you can use this script. Have fun!!