t-sql random string generator

This is a simple stored procedure that you can use to generate a random string. You can use it as a random password generator and for other purposes. It is very simple so I won't bore you with unnecessary explanations but if you do happen to have any questions feel free to post them here.

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[usp_GenerateRandomString]
  @sLength tinyint = 10,
  @randomString varchar(50) OUTPUT
AS
BEGIN
  SET NOCOUNT ON
  DECLARE @counter tinyint
  DECLARE @nextChar char(1)
  SET @counter = 1
  SET @randomString = ''

  WHILE @counter <= @sLength
    BEGIN
      SELECT @nextChar = CHAR(ROUND(RAND() * 93 + 33, 0))
      IF ASCII(@nextChar) not in (34, 39, 40, 41, 44, 46, 96, 58, 59)
        BEGIN
          SELECT @randomString = @randomString + @nextChar
          SET @counter = @counter + 1
        END
    END
END

There are of course other ways to accomplish this – a very simple one would be to use newid() and grab whatever number of characters you need from it.

No dependency on SP1 of .NET framework anymore

Since we received a few messages from users having trouble with xSQL Data Compare because of the SP1 dependency, instead of "forcing" the users to install SP1 for .NET Framework we decided to remove that dependency altogether. You can simply download the latest build of xSQL Bundle from our site and install it over the current version you have on your machine.

You can download the latest build of xSQL Bundle from: http://www.xsql.com/download/sql_server_comparison_bundle/

xSQL Data Compare 3.0 requires .NET Framework SP1

We have receives a couple of reports from users who are not seeing the INSERT statements when scripting a table (schema and data) from xSQL Data Compare or when generating a synchronization script. The issue is related to a structure that we are using in version 3.0 that was apparently introduced with the SP1 of .NET Framework.

If you are experiencing this issue with xSQL Data Compare either install the SP1 for .NET Framework which you can get from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=79BC3B77-E02C-4AD3-AACF-A7633F706BA5&displaylang=en or email us if for some reason you do not want to install SP1 and would rather just go back to xSQL Data Compare version 2.5 which does not require SP1.

Synchronize with bulk insert – xSQL Data Compare

By default the database synchronization script that xSQL Data Compare generates contains one INSERT statement for every row that exists in the source database but does not exist on the target (destination) database. When the number of such rows is extremely large you can imagine that the synchronization script will likely get to be very large also and such script on a transaction will make for an extremely large transaction that is bound to create performance issues.

It is for that reason that xSQL Data Compare provides a little known “switch” called “Synchronize with bulk insert” which will change the default behavior and instead of generating one INSERT statement for each row will generate only one bulk insert statement for each table in the comparison making for a much more efficient synchronization script.

The “Synchronize with bulk insert” option can be found under the main menu Compare / Data Options.

In case you are not familiar with xSQL Data Compare – it is a simple tool that allows you to compare and synchronize the data in two SQL Server databases and supports SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2000. It is free for SQL Server Express databases with no limitations and it is also free for other editions of SQL Server but with some limitations. You can read more and download your copy of xSQL Data Compare from our website at: http://www.xsql.com