Book Image

Learn T-SQL Querying

By : Pedro Lopes, Pam Lahoud
Book Image

Learn T-SQL Querying

By: Pedro Lopes, Pam Lahoud

Overview of this book

Transact-SQL (T-SQL) is Microsoft's proprietary extension to the SQL language used with Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. This book will be a usefu to learning the art of writing efficient T-SQL code in modern SQL Server versions as well as the Azure SQL Database. The book will get you started with query processing fundamentals to help you write powerful, performant T-SQL queries. You will then focus on query execution plans and leverage them for troubleshooting. In later chapters, you will explain how to identify various T-SQL patterns and anti-patterns. This will help you analyze execution plans to gain insights into current performance, and determine whether or not a query is scalable. You will also build diagnostic queries using dynamic management views (DMVs) and dynamic management functions (DMFs) to address various challenges in T-SQL execution. Next, you will work with the built-in tools of SQL Server to shorten the time taken to address query performance and scalability issues. In the concluding chapters, this will guide you through implementing various features, such as Extended Events, Query Store, and Query Tuning Assistant, using hands-on examples. By the end of the book, you will have developed the skills to determine query performance bottlenecks, avoid pitfalls, and discover the anti-patterns in use.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Query Processing Fundamentals
5
Section 2: Dos and Donts of T-SQL
10
Section 3: Assemble Your Query Troubleshooting Toolbox

Discovering T-SQL Anti-Patterns in Depth

In Chapter 6, Easily-Identified T-SQL Anti-Patterns, we covered some anti-patterns that may impact query performance that should be obvious just by reading the T-SQL code itself. Now we will move on to some anti-patterns that may require some more in-depth analysis to be identified. These often involve T-SQL that at first glance seems straightforward, but when we dig into the query plan, there may be hidden performance pitfalls, such as expensive operations or hidden practices that prevent predicate SARGability.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • Implicit conversions
  • Avoiding unnecessary sort operations
  • Avoiding UDF pitfalls
  • Avoiding unnecessary overhead with stored procedures
  • Pitfalls of complex views
  • Pitfalls of correlated sub-queries
  • Properly storing intermediate results
...