Database - Joel Lipman .Com

DataScramble - Randomizing data rows

: Joel Lipman; Transact-SQL; 07 December 2012; Hits: 7457

What?
Along with my DataJumble function and DataTumble procedure which also help scramble database tables sent to suppliers/developers, this is a function which simply finds random characters and inserts these.

I would recommend using the DataTumble script over this one as this leaves data very difficult to work with:

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Before:
           StudentID   StudentName          DateOfBirth
           ----------- -------------------- -------------
           1           John Smith           1990-03-21
           2           Fred Bloggs          1988-11-02
           3           Another User         1985-07-11
           4           Yet Another User     1977-06-25

       After:
           StudentID   StudentName          DateOfBirth
           ----------- -------------------- -------------
           1           PDUHjRWJcb           1926-01-02
           2           WRmNqQKxvuV          1969-03-14
           3           nBCkAVDrvdhe         1968-05-05
           4           RJDsFMaeNcLrcMWw     1964-08-08

Before:
StudentID StudentName DateOfBirth
----------- -------------------- -------------
1 John Smith 1990-03-21
2 Fred Bloggs 1988-11-02
3 Another User 1985-07-11
4 Yet Another User 1977-06-25
After:
StudentID StudentName DateOfBirth
----------- -------------------- -------------
1 PDUHjRWJcb 1926-01-02
2 WRmNqQKxvuV 1969-03-14
3 nBCkAVDrvdhe 1968-05-05
4 RJDsFMaeNcLrcMWw 1964-08-08

How?

Category: Transact-SQL :: Article: 460

: Joel Lipman; Transact-SQL; 07 December 2012; Hits: 5444

What?
This is a stored procedure I've nabbed from some consultants from my day job. It shuffles the records and matching data values:

Before:

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ID        Name         DateOfBirth
--------- ------------ -----------
1         John Smith   1988-06-24
2         Fred Bloggs  1972-11-17
3         Another User 1964-02-18

ID Name DateOfBirth
--------- ------------ -----------
1 John Smith 1988-06-24
2 Fred Bloggs 1972-11-17
3 Another User 1964-02-18

After:

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ID        Name         DateOfBirth
--------- ------------ -----------
1         Fred Bloggs  1964-02-18
2         Another User 1988-06-24
3         John Smith   1972-11-17

ID Name DateOfBirth
--------- ------------ -----------
1 Fred Bloggs 1964-02-18
2 Another User 1988-06-24
3 John Smith 1972-11-17

Looks pretty good, doesn't it? The advantages of this is that you can send this data to your developers and the data types will be correct and maybe they'll resolve issues faster than if they were given scrambled data (see my articles on DataJumble and DataScramble).

How?

Category: Transact-SQL :: Article: 459

: Joel Lipman; MySQL; 27 November 2012; Hits: 6547

What?
We have a specific timetabling system for academic institutions and all our staff/students follow academic week numbers as opposed to calendar week numbers.

Why?
The aim of this article is to quickly generate a calendar for a full academic year for referencing by staff/students.

How?

: Joel Lipman; Databases; 05 November 2012; Hits: 6274

What?
We have a datawarehouse and we want to be able to count all the records in any table of the database that match on a particular warehouse load. This is a column value where the column is called "WarehouseLoadKey" and the value we want to search on is "3" (the 3rd incremental load).

How?
The below stored procedure can be reduced to just a script as long as you declare and set the parameters after the BEGIN and extract the script from BEGIN to END (excluding the words BEGIN and END - avoids the need to create a stored procedure and saving it on a database):

: Joel Lipman; Transact-SQL; 26 October 2012; Hits: 7781

What?
Yes you could just run a SELECT DISTINCT query along with collation to make it case-sensitive and/or accent-sensitive but using this stored procedure means I only specify the table and then the columns.

How?

: Joel Lipman; Databases; 26 October 2012; Hits: 5062

What?
This is a quick note to show you how to convert a given comma delimited string into a database table:

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Given:   "Title,Forenames,Surname"

Return:
  ID     Value
  ------ ----------------
  1      Title
  2      Forenames
  3      Surname

Note the below example omits the ID column and just leaves VALUE.

Given: "Title,Forenames,Surname"
Return:
ID Value
------ ----------------
1 Title
2 Forenames
3 Surname
Note the below example omits the ID column and just leaves VALUE.

Why?
Do we need a reason?

How?

Category: Databases :: Article: 440

: Joel Lipman; Databases; 11 October 2012; Hits: 34659

Why?
Data Consistency. I was tasked with finding variations of our default values. End-users were complaining that some default values get listed twice because their system was case-sensitive despite the collation of the SQL Server being case-insensitive.

What?
End-users said that they could see the options "Data Not Yet Available" as well as "Data not yet available". These are obviously the same values, so I should go through the database and change all variations to be typed the same way in the same case.

Wouldn't it be nice to search through your entire database for similar sounding values (so not just case), and in this example, find typos as well, eg. "Daat ont Ety Aviable".

How?

: Joel Lipman; Transact-SQL; 10 October 2012; Hits: 8520

What?
This article is for demonstrating how to use a SOUNDEX in a select and then listing all the variations based on case-sensitivity.

Why?
We have a database with data in it. For a particular column we have setup default values, let's use the example "Data Not Yet Available". Unfortunately the end-user reported these default values sometimes list twice, especially when the case is different, eg. "Data not yet available". The final system (qlikview) was case-sensitive despite our server collation being case-insensitive.

Furthermore, we now have the task of finding all the variations of the default values which we found we could do with the built-in SOUNDEX function.

How?

: Joel Lipman; Databases; 08 October 2012; Hits: 10208

What?
I have a PHP script which behaves like PhpMyAdmin, in that it automatically lists a database structure and the fields to modify similar to an excel spreadsheet. Now without using PHP, I need standalone SQL scripts that can simply be used to search an entire database for a particular string of word(s).

I've posted my own as well as some others I've lifted from elsewhere, as they worked with my environment, to put them in one place on a website I've bookmarked (my personal site :c)

: Joel Lipman; Oracle PL/SQL; 22 August 2012; Hits: 8740

What?
This article describes a function that will return random data based on a given value. The function intends to determine the data type and return data that is absolutely irrelevant to the original data but the same length and the same type of data.

Why?
The joy of working with the plethora of applications out there result in me using MySQL, Oracle PL/SQL and Transact SQL in my day job. The equivalent functions have to be written up all in the name of "seamless integration"...

How?

: Joel Lipman; Oracle PL/SQL; 21 August 2012; Hits: 6396

What?
How to use the randomization features of Oracle PL/SQL.

Why?
I've been tasked with writing a stored procedure that scrambles data for developers working with some of our databases containing sensitive data.

How?

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SELECT DBMS_RANDOM.option1[(option2)] FROM DUAL;

SELECT DBMS_RANDOM.option1[(option2)] FROM DUAL;

Category: Oracle PL/SQL :: Article: 431

: Joel Lipman; Transact-SQL; 03 August 2012; Hits: 9691

Why?
Hmm... I was writing a stored procedure that will scramble data given a table as a parameter. Because I only want to update a temporary table and not the original (source) table, I needed the following stored procedure (or part of).

What?
This will copy a given table into a temporary table all the while maintaining the structure and data.

Thinking inside of the box
I think everyone suggests the following (or at least the idea of):

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SELECT *
INTO #MyTempTable
FROM @GivenTable

SELECT *
INTO #MyTempTable
FROM @GivenTable

If @GivenTable is a parameter then the above will simply return an error. Also, if it was this easy, I wouldn't need to post this note on my website.

Category: Transact-SQL :: Article: 424

DataScramble - Randomizing data rows

DataTumble - Randomize Data Rows

Generate Academic Calendar using MySQL

Search a database for a value and count matching rows

Stored Procedure to List Distinct Values and Counts

Convert a delimited string to table

Search a database with SOUNDEX

T-SQL example of Case-Sensitive Soundex

Search a database for a string (MySQL, T-SQL)

Data Randomization Function in Oracle PL/SQL

DBMS Random Reference

Copy a table with structure and data into a temporary table

MySQL

Oracle PL/SQL

Transact-SQL

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