ragin'Geek » Software

Software Tip: How To Export A Table To XML File In SQL Server Management Studio

ragin'Geek — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:24:16 +0000

There doesn’t seem to be a User Interface for exporting a table to an XML file in SQL Server Management Studio. It seems that Microsoft completely overlooked the case when you just need to do a one time export. The Import and Export Wizard that can be run from SQL Server Management Studio has options to export tables to many destinations, but oddly an XML file is not one of them. In the wizard, there are two options that have the letters XML in them, but I cannot get either one of them to work.

After many hours of searching the internet and trying different settings in the Export Wizard, I resigned myself to doing it manually. Here are the steps I took:

1. Open a new query window in SQL Server Management Studio.

2. Type in the select statement adding “for xml raw”.

3. Set the results to output in grid.

4. Execute the query.

5. Click on the link in the results pane.

This opens the resulting xml in a new query window.

6. Add the tags to the beginning and ending of the xml.

7. Save the resulting text to a file.

Software Tip: Linked Item Fails to Preview in Sitecore

ragin'Geek — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 02:15:28 +0000

Recently I encountered a situation where a linked item would only show in preview mode when the preview date / time was prior to 12/15/09 12:00pm. There were no publishing restrictions on my linked item. So I was very perplexed. After a few fruitless days of exchanging posts on the support site my issue was escalated to the next level and I was able to talk to a support rep. After a few minutes of showing him what was going on, he figured out that it must be a publishing restriction on an item in the path of the linked item. So we walked back up the item path in the content tree checking publishing restrictions for each node as we went along. Finally we got to the Home node and low and behold someone had set it to expire on 12/15/09 12:00pm. After we removed that expiration, previewing worked as expected.

HTH!

Software Tip: Add Machine Name to Log4Net Filename

ragin'Geek — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:20:13 +0000

If you have multiple servers logging to the same folder, you can create unique file names by adding the server name to the file that it logs to by changing your log4netConfig.xml file to something like:

Beware! SQL Server Stops Execution on Recompile

ragin'Geek — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:39:47 +0000

Can anyone tell me why Microsoft SQL Server stops executing a stored procedure when it is recompiled? This is dangerous behavior unlike any other software code release system I’ve ever seen. Through all my years of SQL development this thought never crossed my mind. In any other development platform, you compile your code to a dll or exe and copy it to where it needs to exist. If an existing copy is running, the operating system won’t let the file be overwritten. I’ve always expected a similar behavior in SQL Server. I thought, if a procedure is executing, SQL Server will continue to use the code that is in memory while a recompile of the procedure would just cause the next invocation to use the new version. But a few years ago a colleague posed that question right before we deployed a changed procedure. I didn’t even think twice about it (how preposterous that would be). I answered, “No way! That would be retarded!” Well recently, I was bitten by this exact behavior. An important process was running and I had a minor update to release. I went ahead and released my change while the procedure was running and I discovered that only half of the process that was running completed. Looking through our audit logs I was able to see that execution stopped exactly at the time of the recompile. I have since been able to reproduce this behavior a few times. I’m still puzzled as to why the Microsoft’s SQL Server development team would allow such dangerous behavior.

Software Tip: Default Value for Checkbox in Sitecore

ragin'Geek — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:44:03 +0000

In Sitecore, if you want to default a checkbox in a template to checked, set the default value to 1.

Vista Does Suck

ragin'Geek — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:00:35 +0000

I came across this post “It’s Official: Vista Sucks” and I have to agree. I bought a laptop last December. Leary that it came with Vista installed I figured if it’s too slow I could always wipe the hard drive and install XP. Even still, since it was to be my first hands on experience with Vista, I was anxious to see what it was like. It does look nice, but man is it slow and a bit of a pain to figure out where things are located being so accustomed to XP. Anyway, I have been slow to make the move back to XP, but recently I began to research the possibility. I found people saying that it is a difficult process because laptops these days are built especially for Vista. So I have put that quest on the back burner. After reading the linked post, it appears that there are things I can do to better performance, so I will give them a try. Has anyone done a “downgrade” on their Vista laptop? If so, do you have any tips for fellow DIYers?

19 Cool Features of Google

ragin'Geek — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:21:04 +0000

Here’s some cool things you can do with Google:

Browse the universe
Search nearby
Get directions by business name/category
Get directions for using public transportation
Create your own maps

Check gas prices in your area
Check traffic in your area
View street level images of cities
Add / Edit business info in Google Maps
Check the weather
Find movie info
Look up area codes
Track FedEx, UPS, DHL, or USPS packages
Check flight statuses
Perform measurement conversions
Perform currency conversions
Calculator
Dictionary
Get answers to fact-based questions

Click here for more info on these tips.

Alleviate Visual Studio 2008 Crashes

ragin'Geek — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:58:20 +0000

When I first began usign Visual Studio 2008 it was excrutiatingly slow at saving changes, switching between tabbed files, and switching focus from another program to Visual Studio 2008. To make matters worse, any one of these tasks and a few others would cause Visual Studio 2008 to crash. After too much frustration, I decided to take a look at the options (on the menu: Tools | Options). Under Environment/General, I noticed a new setting: Animate environment tools. After unchecking it, Visual Studio 2008 has been as quick and steady as the prior versions of Visual Studio. HTH.

Canadian software sucks…eh?

ragin'Geek — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:34:14 +0000

As an experienced software engineer, I’ve developed an axiom that I never trust code written by a developer that can’t even spell his/her comments correctly. I mean, if he/she has mistakes in his/her comments, why should I not expect the same for his/her code? Sure the compiler will catch most mistakes, but what if he/she misspelled the intended function name and the resultant misspelling is a valid function name. The same goes for variables. Essentially, software development is 100% about paying attention to details. If the developer can’t get the comments right, it makes me wonder, “what else is not right?” As I eluded to in the opening, experience has proven this out, as 9 times out of 10, when I have audited code with misspelled comments, the developers have turned out to be pretty lousy.

Similarly, I never let myself be influenced by others when it comes to forming an opinion about someone. I reserve my opinion until I form one based on my own experience. For example, back in my early days in the Information Technology world I shared an office with a colleague while we served in a technical support capacity for a software product. Through all of the agony we suffered in that office we always found ways to have fun. One thing that has stuck with me all of these years is one day my coworker hung up his phone and said, “I hate Canadians.” Amusingly I responded, “What?! Why?!” He said, “listen to this voice mail.” It went something like this:

Hi Sam (my co-worker), this is Mike (his client). I’m not sure what you’re call was aboot (that’s Canadian for about), but I’m back in the office, so give me a shoot (Canadian for shout).

Sam explained that he spent the better part of the prior day trying to help Mike, but Mike was just not getting it. Anyway, Sam saved that voice mail and just about every day after that he would play it for me and sigh, “I hate Canadians”, causing us both to laugh. From then on, any time I encounter a Canadian I am reminded of it, but I never quite understood why he said what he said.

That is, until recently. At work, the project I just completed involved interfacing with a software called Swisher Plus. It was written by Canadians. It was extremely frustrating to find that the software does not work as it would lead you to believe it should. My first hints of trouble occurred when I viewed the data structures in the database. First came a table misspelled as BATCHS (BATCHES ??). Then came a table named ADMIN_TIMES whose primary key is a column named ADIN_TIME (ADMIN_TIME ??). Then a table named DRUG_LIST_MACHINE with columns named MACHINE NAME and CANISTER SIZE. Every other multi-word column name in the database has underscores between the words, why do these two have spaces? Armed with my axiom I got a bad feeling in my stomach.

Once I got the data integration done, it was time to make sure the program performed properly. The software consists of a server application that gives client computers jobs to perform. In the server application one can configure labels via a label designer interface that is only partially useful. There are no grid lines, commands, or coordinates to line up the boxes the user drops on the label. I could go on, but let me just say it’s terrible. Then there is a screen that seemingly allows the user to sort the jobs by any fields he/she desires and in any direction. After hours of trying, I finally gave in to the reality that no matter which fields and direction are selected, the application sorts by date and time ascending. Other problems include:

the application has to be restarted in order for any changes to take affect.
whenever an error occurs a hideous dialog box is displayed with no meaningful information. To make matters worse, the dialog box has the following buttons: Ok, Print, Email, Cancel. Clicking any button other than Ok results in another another error spawning another such dialog box, this continues indefinitely.
the server application gives jobs to clients that are not configured to contain the inventory needed for the jobs, resulting in the aforementioned error situation.

I’m sure there are more issues, but for what I needed to do that was all that I experienced. I wasn’t about to look for more.

In conclusion, this software is another case that confirms my axiom. While dealing with this application for the past 2 weeks I continuously found myself shouting, “I hate Canadians!” Alas, I came to that conclusion through my own misfortunes.

~~The names have been changed to protect the innocent~~