[dba-SQLServer] SQL Server - Turning comparisons into Booleans

jwcolby jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Fri May 11 11:44:01 CDT 2007


You know what Francisco, I work hard at learning this on my own.  I have a
half dozen books open in front of me, and I Google for an hour before I post
a request for help.  I just get tired of silly crap, both from SQL Server
(or any other software package) and from list members.  SQL Server's "help"
was useless, as was Arthur's post.  Every single point in the email was
useless, and ended up condescending.

James post OTOH was informative, to the point and best of all worked!

I read every single reply to my posts trying to learn what I can, so when I
get an entire email full of useless and even condescending crap it is
annoying.  It is REALLY annoying when it happens over and over.  I try very
hard to only post responses to questions with real, useful suggestions.  

NOW, go back and read Arthur's original response (at the bottom of this
email).  It is just useless, a waste of my time, and a waste of the list's
bandwidth.  James response is a an example of a succinct and useful reply to
a request for help.  Arthur had exactly the same information to work with
that James did.  LOOK at the difference in responses!!!

Arthur is a bright guy, and knows a lot of stuff.  If he would limit his
responses to actually providing solutions to problems he would be immensely
useful.

John W. Colby
Colby Consulting
www.ColbyConsulting.com
-----Original Message-----
From: dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Francisco
Tapia
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 12:11 PM
To: dba-sqlserver at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: Re: [dba-SQLServer] SQL Server - Turning comparisons into Booleans

On 5/8/07, JWColby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote:
>
> Arthur,
>
> >Let's pick it apart tad by tad, beginning with your denigrating use 
> >of
> "infamous". This is a "famous" error, not an infamous error. For 
> references to infamous errors, their numbers are 533 and 601.
>
> I have no way of knowing whether this is a famous error or not.  
> However...
>
> Infamous - ill-famed: having an exceedingly bad reputation; "a 
> notorious gangster"; "the tenderloin district was notorious for vice"
>
> How about "f*g useless!!!  Will that do?


first thing... let's just cut it down... to simple syntax... no need to add
the other letters if someone does not understand your profanity I'm sure you
can handle them privately.


"ERROR SOMEWHERE in the vicinity of...."
>
> Oh yea, that fits the word infamous in my book.  It also fits F*G 
> useless as far as I am concerned!


It's a syntactical error.. it tells you where it's at... you need to at this
point re-read the expression you've typed in and re-evaluate what you want
here.  The system isn't going to turn around and error out with:

"ERROR, John, you must use blah blah blah to fix this error" NOT even VBA
does this... IF you happen to have a bad reference somewhere you will notice
that sometimes it will even error out doing stupid things such as case
changes or MIN(x) etc... dumb things that are built in to the language. all
because a reference to a non-default library is missing...

EBKAC is equally helpful, and only a tad more insulting.
>
> >Step 2: Why is there no space between the value and the operator? I 
> >shall
> assume that it's the fault of the translator.
>
> Perhaps it is because that is the 47th attempt at putting things in 
> and taking things out, NONE of which gave me any results other than 
> the INFAMOUS "Error somewhere in the vicinity of Hudson NC".
>
> >Step 3: lose the "AS" part and run the query and see what happens. 
> >You
> probably won't get this far, since Steps 1 and 2 ought to fix the 
> problem, but JIC (just in case).
>
> AS is the clause that defines the alias.  You can't lose that.  Even I 
> know that.


you can, your AS is optional (ha!)... example

SELECT 1 testfieldone, 2 AS testfieldtwo

this generates a list of values 1 and 2 in columns testfieldone and
testfieldtwo, this is acceptable syntax for sql 7, 2000 and 2005.  Though
adding the AS makes it more legible and easier to follow along (btw, good
idea to get into the habit of capitalizing all they default keywords).



>Step 4: when none of the above works, re-do the query in Management Studio.
> Then compare the syntax.
>
> And this is my problem with you Arthur.  If I told you "if that fails,
> just
> rebuild the space shuttle" what would you tell me?  If I told you that in
> EVERY EMAIL what would you tell me?  Such helpful suggestions are so
> useless
> that I would expect you to someday cease and desisted in issuing them.
> Alas....
>
> I tried using Management Studio.  It is vastly different from Access' qbd
> window and requires more than a passing knowledge of the intricacies of
> SQL
> Server's brand of SQL.  If you had been paying attention for the last few
> months you would understand that to be the root of my problem.  I also
> tried
> poking and prodding, and Googling and looking up various phrases in my
> books, trying to solve the problem without assistance.
>
> Not to worry, James Barash actually solved my problem by providing the (or
> a) syntax needed to do comparisons in SQL Server.  I have to guess that it
> took him all of three minutes to type it into an email, and it took me all
> of three minutes to type it in and verify that it works.
>
> Thanks James!


Glad to see your problem has been resolved.


John W. Colby
> Colby Consulting
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur
> Fuller
> Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 1:35 PM
> To: dba-sqlserver at databaseadvisors.com
> Subject: Re: [dba-SQLServer] SQL Server - Turning comparisons into
> Booleans
>
> Let's pick it apart tad by tad, beginning with your denigrating use of
> "infamous". This is a "famous" error, not an infamous error. For
> references
> to infamous errors, their numbers are 533 and 601.
>
> Now. Let's go step by step.AFAIK S2k5 has no issues with square brackets,
> in
> fact I use them frequently, but begin by removing them.
>
> Step 2: Why is there no space between the value and the operator? I shall
> assume that it's the fault of the translator.
>
> Step 3: lose the "AS" part and run the query and see what happens. You
> probably won't get this far, since Steps 1 and 2 ought to fix the problem,
> but JIC (just in case).
>
> Step 4: when none of the above works, re-do the query in Management
> Studio.
> Then compare the syntax.
>
> A,
>
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>
>


-- 
-Francisco
http://sqlthis.blogspot.com | Tsql and More...
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