CodeCamp and SQL Saturday

I will be speaking tomorrow at CodeCamp. My session is "Exploring SQL Server Column-Level Encryption".

Next Saturday I'll be speaking at SQL Saturday #12. I'll have two sessions there: "Understanding SQL Injection (DB Devs and Admins) and "Perf Testing 2008’s Transparent Data Encryption".

Should be fun. I'm still waiting to hear anything from PASS about speaking there. So far there have been zero updates to the speaker's resource page besides saying that the "call for speakers" has closed.

PASS 2009's "Call for Speakers"

Well, PASS's 2009 Summit "Call for Speakers" deadline got moved out two weeks, so I had a bit more time to get everything ready. I submitted four abstracts tonight. They are posted here.

Now ... I wait.

Using REPLICATE to Build Long Strings

REPLICATE is a very useful tool, but there are limitations to its "out of the box" functionality.

Problem
This code shows the problem:

SELECT LEN(REPLICATE('X',  1000))
SELECT LEN(REPLICATE('X',  5000))
SELECT LEN(REPLICATE('X', 10000))

The result is:

----
1000

----
5000

----
8000

REPLICATE will not, by default, create a string longer than 8,000 characters. Here is the test that shows that the longest string is exactly 8,000 characters:

DECLARE @ct  int
DECLARE @s1  varchar(max)

SET @ct = 0
WHILE @ct < 10000 BEGIN
  SET @ct = @ct + 1
  SET @s1 = REPLICATE('X', @ct)

  IF len(@s1) <> @ct BEGIN
    SELECT @ct AS '@ct', len(@s1) AS 'Len @s1'
    BREAK
  END
END

---

@ct   Len @s1
----  -------
8001     8000

Fix
How can you make it build a longer string? Use CAST.

DECLARE @ct  int
DECLARE @s1  varchar(max)

SET @ct = 0
WHILE @ct < 10000 BEGIN
  SET @ct = @ct + 1
  SET @s1 = REPLICATE(CAST('X' AS varchar(max)), @ct)

  IF LEN(@s1) <> @ct BEGIN
    SELECT @ct AS '@ct', LEN(@s1) AS 'LEN @s1'
    BREAK
  END
END
SELECT LEN(@s1) AS 'Final String Length'

---

Final String Length
-------------------
              10000

Skip the Splash Screen on SQL Server Management Studio Start-Up

Simply add "-nosplash" to the target line in your SSMS shortcut, and it will skip displaying the splash screen.

According to a SQL Server Magazine article, "disabling the splash screen can cut the load time for SSMS in half."