10 Ways To Abuse T-SQL

10 Ways To Abuse T-SQLCommon performance

mistakes, coding errors, and how to prevent them

Tracy McKibbenDBA Supervisor, Senior SQL Server DBA

Pearson VUE

Blog: realsqlguy.com

Twitter: @RealSQLGuy

I’m not saying I’m Batman, I’m just saying that nobody has

ever seen me and Batman in the same room together...

10 Ways To Abuse T-SQL

• Procedural coding• User-defined functions• Views• SELECT *• Non-SARGable queries• Bandaids• Mismatched Data Types• NULL• Incorrect or unnecessary ordering• Single-row triggers

Procedural Coding

Symptoms include:

• loops

• cursors

• repeated SQL statements

• temp tables

• if/else structures

Procedural Coding

Comparable to carrying groceries to the car one item at a time, when you could be using this instead.

Procedural Coding

Help your DBA out, learn set-based coding methods. Be a team player.

User-Defined Functions

Useful for

• code re-use

• packaging complex logic

• readability

User-Defined Functions

Useful for

• code re-use

• packaging complex logic

• Readability

• killing performance

• complicating query tuning

• inducing DBA nightmares

User-Defined Functions

Functions have their place, but they're not always the right tool for the job.

Views

Like user-defined functions, views can be used to

• re-use code

• hide complex queries

• make large queries more readable

Views

But what's lurking beneath the surface?

Views

Views can hide some scary performance issues. Make sure your view is clear.

SELECT *

Are you SURE you want the whole thing?

SELECT *

What's wrong with SELECT *?

• prone to table scans or lookups

• difficult to support with indexes

• widely considered sloppy and "lazy“

• dangerous in views

SELECT *

Be a hero.

Don't use SELECT * in code that counts.

Non-SARGable Queries

What is a SARGable query?

A query that is Search ARGument-able.

What does that mean?

Non-SARGable Queries

Which of these are SARGable expressions?

• SalesPersonID <> 10

• SalesPersonID = 99

• SalesPersonID >= 100

• SalesPersonID NOT IN (some subquery)

• SalesPersonID IN (some subquery)

• SalesPersonID IS NULL

• ISNULL(SalesPersonID, 0) = 0

Non-SARGable Queries

Which of these are SARGable expressions?

• SalesPersonID <> 10 *

• SalesPersonID = 99

• SalesPersonID >= 100

• SalesPersonID NOT IN (some subquery)

• SalesPersonID IN (some subquery)

• SalesPersonID IS NULL

• ISNULL(SalesPersonID, 0) = 0 **

* SQL 2008+ ** sargable if column is NOT NULLable

Non-SARGable Queries

SARG makes DBA's happy!

Bandaids

Don't use bandaids when corrective surgery is required

Bandaids

T-SQL makes it easy, too easy, to cover up coding mistakes, often with a price.

• DISTINCT (don't hide dupes, stop fetching them in the first place)

• NOLOCK (this is NOT the cure for blocking)

• UNION (figure out the logic for a proper WHERE clause)

Bandaids

Be tough - rip off the bandaids!

Ya big crybaby....

Mismatched Data Types

Wrong. So wrong.Some comparisons should never be made.

Mismatched Data Types

Some transformations conversions work just fine. Some create performance problems. Some just fail miserably.

Watch out for:

• NVARCHAR to VARCHAR

• character to numeric

• datetime manipulations to remove time, DATEDIFF

Mismatched Data Types

Keep your data types compatible

NULL

Improper handling of NULL values can lead to errors and/or incorrect results.

NULL

• NULL has NO VALUE

• NULL does not mean zero

• NULL does not mean blank

• NULL does not mean an empty string

• NULL means NULL

NULL

NULL values aren't difficult to work with, but be sure to read the fine print.

Incorrect/Unnecessary Ordering

Don't make assumptions about how data will be ordered.

If a specific order is required, specify it.

Incorrect/Unnecessary Ordering

Without ORDER BY, the query optimizer will surprise you with a "random" sort order, dictated by the fastest query plan it could find.

Specifying an ORDER BY can affect the query plan selected, thus affecting the performance of the query.

Incorrect/Unnecessary Ordering

Sometimes the order of things doesn't matter, sometimes it makes all the difference.

Single-row Triggers

This kind of thinking has no place in this movie. Nor does it belong inside a trigger.

Triggers fire per operation, not per row, and must be written to handle multi-row operations.

Single-row Triggers

Sometimes there should be only one, but not inside a trigger.

Lessons Learned

• Use set-based methods• Be careful with user-defined

functions and views• SELECT * - lazy and dangerous• Always obey SARG• Don’t use bandaids• Watch your data types• NULL – it’s not nothing• Order your results carefully• Triggers – many rows, not one

Any Questions?