Get Filestream Storage Directory

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Filestreams are a great way to store files in SQL Server. SQL Server makes this super easy by managing the storage of the physical files on the file system somewhere. But what if you want to get access to these files or if you just want to know where they’re stored. SQL Server provides a function called PathName that you can call to get this path. You call this function like you would call an extension method in .Net. In the example below, we’ll assume that the column InvoiceFile is a Filestream datatype.

SELECT	TOP 1
		InvoiceFile.PathName() AS DirectoryOfFile
FROM	Invoice

Varchar Vs Nvarchar

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People often want to know the difference between varchar vs nvarchar. If you are new to nvarchar, I don’t blame you for not understanding the difference… as they are very similar.

The major difference is that nvarchar stores data as Unicode, where varchar does not. This uses more space, but provides flexibility to handle foreign characters that would not fit in a varchar field.

 
How Varchar And Nvarchar Are Similar

  • They are both used to store text/string data in them
  • The amount of space that both use depends on the size of the data that you are putting in it. It grows with every character that you store.

 
How Varchar And Nvarchar Are Different

  • Nvarchar stores data as Unicode. Varchar stores data as non-Unicode.
  • Varchar stores data at 1 byte per character. Nvarchar stores data at 2 bytes per character.
  • Varchar supports up to 8000 characters in the field definition. Nvarchar only supports up to 4000 characters. Varchar(max) and nvarchar(max) not included.

 
My Thoughts On Which One To Use
Where I am at, I deal with a lot of data. Although it would be nice to be able to support all foreign characters in the database, it is likely that I will never get it. My philosophy is that unless you need to support these extended Unicode characters, just make the field varchar. Nvarchar uses double the space as varchar. Unless your business has a requirement for this, just save the space.

SQL Server Rename Column

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This article will cover how to rename a column in SQL Server. The function of a SQL Server rename column is not performed too often. Usually we do this when we roll out a new product and we want to make a column more generic.

 
SQL Server Rename Column (SQL Server 2005 and beyond)

They make this super simple. Just remember to put to single quotes around the parameters.

EXEC	sp_rename 'Animals.AnimalName', 'AnimalRealName', 'COLUMN'

The above SQL Server rename column code snippet has a few parts to it. Here is the breakdown:

  • sp_rename – This is a system stored procedure will rename different types of objects in SQL Server.
  • ‘Animals.AnimalName’ – This is the tablename and column that I would like to rename.
  • ‘AnimalRealName’ – This is the new name that I would like to call the column.
  • ‘COLUMN’ – This is the type of object that you would like to rename is. To rename a column, always leave this value ‘COLUMN’.

 
If you would like to know how to do a SQL Server rename column for SQL Server versions prior to 2005, please leave a note in the comments.

 
 
Reference: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188351(v=sql.90).aspx