Category Archives: databases

Using localdb in development

LocalDB is an instance of SQL Express. It is easy to use it in development from Visual Studio. I want to have localdb database files included into Visual Studio solution for easy connect to database wherever I work.

Sample solution can be downloaded here https://github.com/mchudinov/LocalDbExample
db
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Free .NET development software alternatives

The standard software stack for a .NET developer is

  • OS – desktop Windows
  • IDE – Visual Studio
  • Database – SQL Server

All these components are quite pricey. But there are free alternatives. And with my recent project I decided to use alternative software for development and production in .NET, all totally free.

  • OS – Linux Mint 17 (based on Debian/Ubuntu)
  • IDE – MonoDevelop
  • Database – MySQL Community Edition

monodevelop
Sample solution can be downloaded from here https://github.com/mchudinov/EF6MySQL
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How to compare date in MS SQL

Starts from version 2008 there are special types to store only date or time. These are Date and Time accordingly. But if a program should support old versions of SQL server then both date and time are stored together in DateTime field. It looks like for example ‘2012-09-02 02:07:38.430’.

Say we need to find all records for one day 2012-09-02.

The simple string comparison works in 2000, 2005 and 2008 versions if date format is correct.

SELECT * FROM SpecialDay WHERE [Date]='2012-09-02'

But this is not safe. And starts from SQL server 2012 this query will not return anything even with the correct same time as in database records.

SELECT * FROM SpecialDay WHERE [Date]='2012-09-02 00:00:00.000'

Then I learned to do it better way:

DECLARE @date DATETIME;
SET     @date = CONVERT(DATETIME, '2012-09-02', 120);
SELECT * FROM SpecialDay 
WHERE [Date] >= @date
AND [Date] < DATEADD(d, 1, @date)

I tried it in all versions of SQL server starts from 2000 and works everywhere.

Here the statement CONVERT(DATETIME, '2012-09-02', 120) converts a string to a date format type 120. This is so caled ODBC-format ‘yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss’ 24-hours. String can be converted to Date-type can be converted with any separator character: slash, point or whatever.

Here is the list of supported date and time formats for CONVERT statement.