SQL Server includes a programming language. That language supports the use of functions. You can create functions, or you can use functions built into SQL.

This article summarizes some of the built in functions.

Sometimes you want to concatinate data from multiple records into one field. For example a list of states could be

1
2
3
4

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
:

or it could be

1

Alabama,Alaska,Arizona...

This second output is an example of concatenation

SQL Select statement

select UserName 
from employees 

for xml path(‘’)

appears to be a concatination mechanism, or a way to change the output to an XML block

select UserName 

                
            
        
        
            

MxLoader is a program developed by IBM and Bruno Portaluri that is used to import or export data to/from maximo into a spreadsheet.

In fact it is delivered as a spreadsheet with an add-in tab.

Micrsoft recommends you use the Path class, when you are playing with directories. The path class has a number of functions, here is a survey of a few:

The StringBuilder object is used to construct strings. It’s supposedly faster than contactinatng strings.

I’m a bit old fashioned of a programmer. I like Visual Basic, and I like sending stuff to a console. The language itself sort of supports this. There are debug.writeline, trace.writeline and a console.Writeline functions. I could write a console application which pushes stuff to the screen.

Windows comes with a built in Event Viewer. You can post information to the Event Viewer as an alternative to posting to logs. here are my notes

The sorted list object is used to contain a list that is somehow sorted alphabetically.

Here is a command to append to a text file.