There are tons of thing in this world that I really don’t understand. SQL Server XQuery is just one of those just out of reach. Poking around trying to answer a question for a developer, I found the following XML script examples. Teh writer provides excellent explanations and examples. Immediately found the right path(pun intended) to go down. I so wished my brain worked this way!
Jun 26 2008 3:41PM by Jacob Sebastian
Ryan Duclos wrote a great article on 10 Common Issues with SSRS. Download his Code, too.
Found this reference … JUST IN TIME!
Thanks Thavash This is by far my most visited page.
http://thavash.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!CF6232111374DFD2!155.entry
| Command | Result |
| FormatDateTime(Parameters!Date.Value,1) | Tuesday, April 10, 2007 |
| FormatDateTime(Parameters!Date.Value,2) | 4/10/2007 |
| FormatDateTime(Parameters!Date.Value,3) | 12:00:00 AM |
| FormatDateTime(Parameters!Date.Value,4) | 00:00 |
…but the better way to do it would be to use …
2) The Format command and specify the exact format you require. For example…
| Command | Result |
| Format(Parameters!Date.Value,”dd-MM-yyyy”) | 10-04-2007 |
| Format(Parameters!Date.Value,”dd/MM/yyyy”) | 10/04/2007 |
| Format(Parameters!Date.Value,”MMM-dd-yyyy”) | Apr-10-2007 |
| Format(Parameters!Date.Value,”MMM-dd-yy”) | Apr-10-07 |
So 3 M’s give you “Apr” ….anyway this is quite useful if you’re looking for Day/Month/Year , since the system will default to MM/DD/YYYY.
Using this you should be able to display the date format you want , or send through a particular format to a Stored Proc.
EDITED 22/08/2007 : If the Format Command doesn’t work , try converting the value to a date , eg.
| Format(Cdate(Parameters!Date.Value),”dd-MM-yyyy”) |
I am Only Here to Help – OBJECT_DEFINITION()
Many people are familiar the Windows Command Prompt. You can open one. type “HELP” and click enter. It will return descriptions of various OS commands. You can type “-?” after a command and get a list on all the switches that can be used with that command. Go ahead and try it (sqlcmd -?)The system is simply returning metadata.SQL has several commands that return metadata about system and user objects. We will look at the OBJECT_DEFINITION() command.
Windows Command Prompt and HELP command.
From the link we learn that it “Returns the Transact-SQL source text of the definition of a specified object.” We all know you can right click on an object in SSMS and script it out. Why use this? Output to SSMS has a limit on how much can be returned at a time. Large object like procedures can be thousands of lines long and will be truncated. AH!
Beside of the nerd cool factor of being able to return source code, it can be handy. One use is to search for the occurrences of specific objects or syntax within objects. Maybe you want to see what objects reference a certain table or maybe find objects that use a specific QUERY HINT.
OBJECT_DEFINITION applies to the following object types:
Read more »