Reporting On Delimited Fields.... Best Practice? Suggestions?
Feb 3, 2004
Hi guys... I need to do some statistical reporting on the answers to registration questions. The answers are stored in pipe-delimited varchar fields to allow for one-or-many answers to a single question... here's an example:
Q: What are your fav colors?
A: [checkbox list of colors]
Now the data is stored like this:
Reg001
-----------
red|blue|green|yellow
Now I need to determine how many people selected each individual answer, so like, how many people picked red, how many people picked yellow.... to report like this:
Red - 12
Blue - 23
Green - 15
Yellow - 9
What is the best, or suggested way, to go about splitting this data up and reporting on it? Can it be done in T-SQL, or will it need to be a combination of T-SQL and .Net language?
I've got a couple guys on my team who seem to think user defined functions are a "risky" feature in SQL 2000. I've been using them for years without problems. Yeah, this one of those loaded prove me right or flame me questions ... whatever. I promise not to consider posts on MSDN forums authoritative answers to this practice question. I'm just trying to see where people stand. What I'm interested in knowing is:
Do you consider UDF's in SQL advanced, hard to figure out, hard to get right or risky?
Any cases where they've caused you more problems than other MS SQL features?
Random hints on best-practice for UDF's - where do they spead things up, slow things down?
Reasons that they are better than sliced bread / cheese spread?
I have tab delimited text files which may have optional fields (meaning they can be not present at all) to the right of the required fields that I care about. It would appear that using a Flat File Connection with Delimited Format (tab) set will choke if it is initially configured with a file that has something like:
data data data
and it then encounters
data data data optionaldata
It chokes. I know this could be parsed line by line, but that seems silly. It seems like there should be a way to ignore columns beyond a certain point (e.g. Format "Delimited Ragged Right").
Is there some way to do this with a directly with a flat file connection?
Currently all of our tables in several databases have the following columns:
user_added (this is nvarchar) host_added (this is nvarchar) date_added (this is datetime) user_modified (this is nvarchar) host_modified (this is nvarchar) date_modified (this is datetime)
Right now our policy is that (a) the _added columns use defaults to populate the data on INSERTS and triggers are generated to update the _modified fields upon an UPDATE of the table.
Our practice has been (a) to manually create these fields in our scripts as we create new tables in our system and (b) create triggers to perform the update anytime we create a new table.
This practice has been fine until recently where we have been outsourcing some of our development and not all of our standards have been adhered to, including this one. I'd like to look at alternatives for somehow maintaining these concepts outside of our development workflows.
The first thing I'd like to inquire about is regarding options to eliminate having developers include these columns in the CREATE TABLE statements. Is it possible in SQL Server 2005 to capture when an CREATE TABLE statement is executed and override/append to the initial CREATE TABLE statement?
The second thing I'd like to inquire about is regarding options to eliminate having developers write the initial trigger that maintains the _modified fields. I guess if there are options to capture when a CREATE TABLE statement is executed, we could possibly generate a CREATE TRIGGER statement against that object as well?
Another idea I would like thoughts on are using some sort of 'table inheritence' to store this information for all objects in our database? This idea come up when I saw this article - http://www.sqlteam.com/article/implementing-table-inheritance-in-sql-server. Do you think the situation I explained here would fall into this concept?
I'm also open to any other thoughts and/suggestions.
As we all know, there is a 8060 bytes size limit on SQL Server rows. Ihave a table which requires a number of text fields (5 or 6). Each ofthese text fields should support a max of 4000 characters. We currentlystore the data in varchar columns, which worked fine untill ourappetite for text fields increased to the current requirement of 5, 6fields of 4000 characters size. I am given to review a design, whichesentially suggests moving the text columns to a separate TextFieldstable. The TextFields table will have two columns - a unique referenceand a VARCHAR (4000) column, thus allowing us to crossreference withthe original record. My first impresion is that I'd rather use the SQLServer 'text' DB type instead, which would allow me the samefunctionality with much less effort and possibly better performance.Can anyone advise on advantages and disadvantages of the two optionsand what the best practice in this case would be.Any advise will be well appreciated.Tzanko
What's the best practice for adding / editing a record into a database with lots of fields ?I am not talking about the mechanics of it, as there are a lot of trivial examples using ADO.NET, stored procs, etc. Deleting is easy, you just pass in (a few) primary key/keys to uniquely identify the record. But in the real world when you have, say, a table with 100 fields! Do you code the INSERT sproc by hand, with 100 parameters... then call it with your ADO.NET code ? sounds like a lot of work to me... What about updating! That's even worst, sometimes you may need to update only 3 or 4 fields, but using sprocs you would have to pass the whole 100 parameters in again, and "update" the whole record (when in fact you are only changing 3 or 4 fields). With the update i could write different sprocs targeting only the fields i wish to update, but that sounds like duplicating work, vs having one generic update proc. Sometimes i just feel like bypassing sprocs and having inline sql as it would be less work... but i know it is untidy.. and more potential to be buggy. So come on guys (and gals)... let's hear your thoughts on how you would handle the insert / update scenarios when you have lots of fields ? Northwind examples are too trivial :-)
Hi,We will be developing a management reporting software for a bank. Theuser will see reports that get updated in near real time( e.g. every 5min), with data regarding transaction amounts, etc. across a number ofdimensions such as day, time, region, etc.The dimensions will be hierarchical in nature. So a zone will havestates and a state will have cities.The raw data has to be pulled from several different databases, such asa DB for ATM transactions, another for home loan applications, etc.It should be easy to add customized reports if a different view of thedata is desired.Our clients suggest that we use a tool called Clementine developed bySPSS. But we have the liberty to choose a different tool if that servesour purpose.Clementine seems to allow a data flow to be defined which might be ofuse to pur project. Does anyone have any idea how this could bedifferent from SQL server's Data Transformation Services?Any other thoughts regarding the approach to be taken, will beappreciated.ThanksYash
I want to create a web browser based MIS suite to use our data held onSQL 7. We have Dreamweaver and Crystal Reports available but I want toknow if these are suitable or if there are any recommendations forsomething I can pick up quickly.It will be simple reports based on complex queries (I can handle mostof this in SQL 7), don't need fancy graphs, just plain boringfinancial reports are what I need to produce.Obvious things I need to create are combo boxes and list boxes forselections. My background is more Delphi/VB and SQL than web basedstuff, so please let me know any recommendations or good places tostart looking.ThanksRyan
I have been asked to look into the best (read practical, efficient, easy to maintain) scenario for setting up a Reporting Service environment.
Ideally what we are looking at is a SQL Server (maybe more than one) for Production data, this will support SharePoint and most other data sources including linked Oracle sources. Data will be distributed to both internal and external applications from this server, possibly located in the DMZ.
A second server would have Reporting Services on it. The thinking here is that this would possibly help take a load off of the production SQL Server and would also isolate Reporting Services from the Production Data box.
A third server would be a SQL Server with test databases and a place for Reporting Services development and testing.
Does this all make sense?
Are we over looking something?
Will we be causing any problems with SharePoint or anything else by adding the extra "hop" because Reporting Services is on a different server than the database?
Are we gaining anything splitting data and Reporting Services?
I've generated a report using Reporting Services, and some of my fields are numeric with the value zero. On generating the report this is shown as 0.00 and not 0. Is this something that is easily fixed?
Currently i am setting up a report. The data source comes from pre-defined custom datasets where i've pre-entered the parameters for both Month and Year.
I already have one table up and working, but now i need a new table below it with a % column for each month so it gives visibility for the trend in recent months. As the interactive parameters are already in place; when i try to create the table it comes through with the specific month that the parameters are set too, and change when the parameters are altered.Is there a way to ignore the parameters for this table; or get around it?
I am creating a report in SSRS and the data is obtained through a stored procedure. One of the parameters is Begin_Date. This is simply a date field. I need to have it on the Page Header section. However, when I placed it there and ran the report, I received the following error -
Error2[rsFieldInPageSectionExpression] The Value expression for the textbox ‘begindate’ refers to a field. Fields cannot be used in page headers or footers.
Is there a way around? I have never faced such a problem when I created reports in Crystal or ActiveReports. Please let me know whether I am missing anything.
I have the following store procedure which execute perfectly fine Under SSMS as it is :
-- Insert statements for procedure here SELECT APHIST.ReturnDate AS ATDATE ,API_HIST.[ActionPlanItemID] ,API_HIST.[ActionPlanID] ,PIT.[ProductItemID] ,PIT.ProductItemCode
[Code] ....
But then when I try to create a dataset using ReportBuilder and pointing to that StoreProcedure, I get the following error message box :
"Could not update a list of fields for the query. Verify that you can connect to the data source and that your query syntax is correct. An item with same key already been added" ...
I've got a report consisting of nested list items and a tablix inside the last list.
As seen below - the tablix seem to shift the  "Brand No:" textbox details to the right when it becomes bigger.  How do I prevent this? Is there some anchor property of the text boxes that link them to the tablix?
I have a problem formatting a field in Reporting Services (minutes to hours).
I have a field called duration which stores time in whole minutes only. I can format this into hours within mssql using the following:
cast(sn.duration/60 as varchar(5)) + ':' + RIGHT('0' + cast(sn.duration%60 as varchar(2)), 2)
But I need to have totals and average columns in my report, which means that the data must come through to RS in the minutes format so I can perform the calculations there.
I am not sure if this is possible or not, we have two datasets and each one has an additional calculated field which breaks the value JobBilledExVAT into three years.
So it reports for example how much we billed in May 2015, 2014 and 2013.
I have got the table to display this when reporting on one dataset by grouping by year
The datasets both look similar to thisÂ
SELECT  Practice.ibvSalesByJob.JobBilledExVAT  ,Practice.ibvSalesByJob.[Year] FROM  Practice.ibvSalesByJob  INNER JOIN Practice.idvJobType
[Code] ...
The calculated field isÂ
=Switch(Fields!Year.Value = Parameters!Year.Value ,"15", Fields!Year.Value = Parameters!Pre1Year.Value ,"14", Fields!Year.Value = Parameters!Pre2Year.Value ,"13") The field I am looking to add together is below =Sum(Fields!JobBilledExVAT.Value)
If I do the below on the dataset associated with the matrix it displays the sum for each year correctly, I would however like to add the Sum(Fields!JobBilledExVAT.Value) from a different dataset (ABS1M) for the relevant year.
However this adds 2015, 14 and 13 from ABS1M and doesn't add them individually if that makes sense? With the calculated field it only shows Year under the main dataset heading not 15, 14 and 13 separately.
I was think of using LOOKUP however I don't know how this would work as 15, 14 and 13 are not displayed under the dataset.
Our division has approximately 300 employees. We have an annual shift bid where seniority is calculated using Date of Hire. If 2 or more employees share the same Date of Hire then we fall back to Date of Application. Currently the SSRS report does a very simple query and shows all the employees in order of their Date of Hire. If they match then it sorts the matching Date of Hire entries alphabetically by the employee name. It then becomes the task of the scheduler to locatethe entries with the same Date of Hire and manually look up the employees' dates of applications then sort them accordingly and re-write the report.Â
Goal: Convert the manual process into an automatic process by modifying the current SSRS report. Data: The dataset is "DivDir" which contains the following fields: "EmpName", "DofHire", & "AppDate".Â
EmpName   DofHire        AppDate Adam ......  12/2/1996     11/15/1996 Bob ..... .... 1/16/1997      12/27/1996 Charlie ....... 1/16/1997      12/12/1996 Dan ......  ... 4/11/2001     3/22/2001
In the above example I want the SSRS report to list the employees in this order:Â Adam, Charlie, Bob, Dan.How do I do this programmatically using SSRS?
we need the list suppliers in a text box,if it were a parameter, we can do it by =join(parameters!Supplier_ID.Value,",")but if the Supplier Id is a field , join (Fields!Supplier_ID.Value,",") doesnt work!how to achieve this.
I'm using a bullet chart in a SSRS report and I want to set the Maximum value in the Linear Scale properties to highest value of the following 4 fields. Is there any way to do this?? This will make all charts line up properly.
Can someone please tell me how to retrieve/query the list of fields from an entity of a report data model that has been published on the reporting server programmatically ?
I am trying to upload a report data model to the reporting server and planning to use that model as the data source and consume it through our existing web application?
I have just started using SQL Server reporting services and am stuck with creating subreports.
I have a added a sub report to the main report. When I right click on the sub report, go to properties -> Parameters, and click on the dropdown for Parameter Value, I see all Sum and Count fields but not the data fields.
For example, In the dropdownlist for the Parameter value, I see Sum(Fields!TASK_ID.Value, "AppTest"), Count(Fields!TASK_NAME.Value, "CammpTest") but not Fields!TASK_NAME.Value, Fields!TASK_ID.Value which are the fields retrieved from the dataset assigned to the subreport.
When I manually change the parameter value to Fields!TASK_ID.Value, and try to preview the report, I get Error: Subreport could not be shown. I have no idea what the underlying issue is but am guessing that it's because the field - Fields!TASK_ID.Value is not in the dropdown but am trying to link the main report and sub report with this field.
Am I missing something here? Any help is appreciated.
How can I create a Table whose one field will be 'tableid INT IDENTITY(1,1)' and other fields will be the fields from the table "ashu". can this be possible in SQL Server without explicitly writing the"ashu" table's fields name.
ApplicantID FirstName LastName CompanyName Line1 Line2 City
State Zip PhoneNum
Owner
OwnerID FirstName LastName CompanyName Line1 Line2 City
State Zip PhoneNum
Now i know what im doing with the applicantID and ownerID...but the BZAcase# is a number/unique identifier that looks like this....2007-VU-000, 2007-VU-001, 2007-VU-003....so my question is 1. how do i get the last three numbers to increment each time a new application is created? 2. how do i retrieve the last record in the table??? 3. Do you have any other suggestions?? i have to have the number and what type of form they applied for in the "case#"???
Background: We are changing the way we pay commissions to our rep groups. We used to pay when the order was placed, now we want to pay when the invoice is paid.
Problem: The commision information is currently stored in the customer order, not in the invoice. These orders get deleted a couple weeks after the order was completed (shipped).
I want to create another, rather dynamic, table/structure that will store the order number and the commission percentage.
This info in this table should:
Be deleted: if the order has been deleted and the invoice either does not exist or was payed some period of time ago (maybe 6 months)
Be updated: if the customer order has been updated (i.e. the commission was changed)
Be inserted: if the order exists but the order number is not in the new table.
hi i have written a procedure for stock report. its working fine. please go through the sp and give me some Suggestions. please tell me where i need to improve my code. thanks
Note: User is required to execute this procedure daily. i am taking the sum of issues,purchases,returns,physical adjustments for each and every product from last updated date to today's date and storing it in a table i,e stock_Dump. from this table i generate the date wise stock report
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF GO SET ANSI_NULLS ON GO
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.spUpdateStock @strReturn varchar(70) output AS BEGIN declare @maxDt smalld atetime if exists(Select * from Stock_Dump where Txn_Date= Convert(varchar,Getdate(),101)) BEGIN set @strReturn='Stock Table already generated for the day. cannot generate it again' END
ELSE BEGIN TRUNCATE TABLE Stock_Dump_Temp select @maxDt=max(Txn_Date) from Stock_Dump /* insert (Opening stock) Closing stock for all all the products from last max Date*/ INSERT INTO Stock_Dump_Temp Select Product_code, convert(varchar,GetDate(),101) as Txn_Date, Closing_Stock as Opening_Stock , 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 from Stock_Dump Where Txn_Date=Convert(varchar,@maxDt,101) /* Issues*/ INSERT INTO Stock_Dump_Temp Select Product_code, convert(varchar,GetDate(),101) as Txn_Date,0, Sum(Qty) as Issue_Qty,0,0,0,0,0,0 from Issue_Details Where Issue_No IN(Select Issue_No from Issue_Hdr Where Issue_Date > Convert(varchar,@maxDt,101) and Issue_Date <= Convert(varchar,getdate(),101)) Group by Product_Code /* Goods receipt*/ INSERT INTO Stock_Dump_Temp Select Product_code, convert(varchar,GetDate(),101) as Txn_Date,0,0, Sum(Qty) as Purchase,0,0,0,0,0 from Dlv_note_Details Where Dlv_Note_No IN(Select Dlv_Note_No from Dlv_Hdr Where Dlv_Note_Date > Convert(varchar,@maxDt,101) and Dlv_Note_Date <= Convert(varchar,getdate(),101)) Group by Product_Code /* Rejection after receipt*/ INSERT INTO Stock_Dump_Temp Select Product_code, convert(varchar,GetDate(),101) as Txn_Date,0,0, 0,Sum(Qty) as Rejected,0,0,0,0 from Rejection_Details Where Rejection_No IN (Select Rejection_No from Rejection_Hdr Where Rejection_Date > Convert(varchar,@maxDt,101) and Rejection_Date <= Convert(varchar,getdate(),101)) Group by Product_Code /* Issues returns*/ INSERT INTO Stock_Dump_Temp Select Product_code, convert(varchar,GetDate(),101) as Txn_Date,0,0, 0,0,Sum(Qty) As Issue_Returns,0,0,0 from Issue_Return_Details Where Issue_R_No IN(Select Issue_R_No from Issue_Return_Hdr Where Return_Date > Convert(varchar,@maxDt,101) and Return_Date <= Convert(varchar,getdate(),101)) Group by Product_Code /* Physical Stock + */ INSERT INTO Stock_Dump_Temp Select Product_code, convert(varchar,GetDate(),101) as Txn_Date,0,0, 0,0,0,Sum(Var_Qty) as Phy_Qty_P,0,0 from Physical_Details Where Var_Qty>0 and Txn_No IN(Select txn_No from Physical_Hdr Where Txn_Date > Convert(varchar,@maxDt,101) and Txn_Date <= Convert(varchar,getdate(),101)) Group by Product_Code /* Physical -*/ INSERT INTO Stock_Dump_Temp Select Product_code, convert(varchar,GetDate(),101) as Txn_Date,0,0, 0,0,0,0,Sum(Var_Qty) as Phy_Qty_M,0 from Physical_Details Where Var_Qty<0 and Txn_No IN(Select txn_No from Physical_Hdr Where Txn_Date > Convert(varchar,@maxDt,101) and Txn_Date <= Convert(varchar,getdate(),101)) Group by Product_Code /* insert all the records into actual table i,e Stock_dump from Stock_dump_temp (temporory table)*/ INSERT INTO Stock_Dump Select Product_code,Txn_Date, Sum(Opening_Stock) as Opening_Stock,Sum(Issue_Qty) as Issue_Qty,Sum(purchase) as Purchase,Sum(Rejected) as Rejected,Sum(Issue_Returns) as Issue_returns, Sum(Phy_Qty_P) as Phy_Qty_P,Sum(Phy_Qty_M) as Phy_Qty_M,0 as Closing_Stock from Stock_Dump_Temp Group By ProducT_Code,Txn_Date /* update closing stock*/ UPDATE Stock_Dump Set Closing_Stock=abs((Opening_Stock+Purchase+Issue_Returns+Phy_Qty_P)-(Issue_Qty+Rejected+Phy_Qty_M)) Where Txn_Date=Convert(varchar,Getdate(),101) /* delete unwanted records */ DELETE From Stock_Dump Where Opening_Stock=0 and Issue_Qty=0 and Purchase=0 and Rejected=0 and Issue_Returns=0 and Phy_Qty_M=0 and Phy_Qty_P=0
set @strReturn='Stock Table Update Successfully' return END
END GO SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF GO SET ANSI_NULLS ON GO
I have a database which contains more than 20000 stored procedureswhich were created withansi nulls off. This i found out using the querySELECT name,AnsiNullsOn FROM(SELECT name, OBJECTPROPERTY(id, 'ExecIsAnsiNullsOn') AS AnsiNullsOnFROM sysobjects WHERE type = 'P' ) A WHERE AnsiNullsOn=0Is there any way that i can set this property to 1 for all the storedprocedures i have??I know the alternate method is to drop the procedure and execute thescripts again with AnsiNullsOn = 1.Is there any other simple ways?? It will be very helpful for me..
Now I have lets say VISID 1 to 50. I'm using this SP to change the text on a button. Now I have 50 buttons. So I run this SP, then I run this in my vb.net code
Code Snippet Dim constr As New SqlConnection(PVDBConn) Try 'Variable to hold the results Dim results As String = String.Empty cmdUpd = New SqlCommand("SelVis1Name", constr) cmdUpd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure constr.Open() 'Set results to the value returned from ExecuteScalar() results = CType(cmdUpd.ExecuteScalar(), String) constr.Close() 'Set our buttons text to that value Button1.Text = results Catch ex As Exception MsgBox(ex.Message.ToString) End Try
At any time, when I start my program, I may need to label 10 buttons, or up to 50. Now I will have this number in a text file. Can I grab that number from a text file, and pass it into a SP?
And can I write this SP only once, to work for more than one label per time. Or do I have to write this sp 50 times?
