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Using Column Sets with Sparse column in SQL Server 2008

Column Sets are a new features in SQL Server 2008 that work in conjuction with the new Sparse column feature. This video explains what a column set is and how it's useful.

Duration:
3 mins 37 secs
Skill Level:
100
Rating:
4.08 out of 5
Publish Date:
November 03, 2008
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About the Author

Image of Plamen Ratchev
Plamen Ratchev has over two decades experience in the software architecture and development field. He has enjoyed building solutions for UNIX, DOS and Windows platforms, with main focus on SQL Server since version 4.21. Plamen is founder of Tangra, specializing in relational database applications analysis, implementation, and tuning. His particular interest is in design patterns, performance a...

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Comments
E20CF1E7B8 on 1/9/2009
Sparse + XML = excellent!

Bala on 9/25/2009
nice. good approach

Steve Hicks on 9/25/2009
cool new feature. excellent presentation(succinct)

Johnny Wild on 9/25/2009
Why have descrete columns if the table has a XML column set. Why not just use the XML and remove the individual columns?

Don Davis on 9/25/2009
I didn't get a good sense of how to use this. I would like a little more detail.

Chris Luttrell on 9/25/2009
Good video and working example.

Terry Grignon on 9/25/2009
Doesn't really show a practical application for sparse columns

Ron on 9/25/2009
There was a word I couldn't understand -- played many times over. Maybe get a layman to listen prior to deployment as a techie may know the jargon and "hear" and comprehend regardless. Just a thought...

Aaron Akzin on 9/25/2009
His accent is pretty strong, so it's a little difficult to understand.

Stéphane Thinel on 9/25/2009
Paul Nielsen, in his recent SQL server 2008 Bible, says thta anyone using sparse columns in his database design, should resign and get a job flipping burgers. I know h's kind of drastic, but I like the guy and his opinions on SQL, so I think I will discard this video...

Plamen Ratchev on 9/26/2009
Johnny, in many cases there is a need to work with simple SQL statements affecting only a couple columns. Using the XML column set will be inefficient, it is mostly for bulk management of the sparse columns.

Plamen Ratchev on 9/26/2009
Don, the following article provides more details on using column sets with sparse columns: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc280521.aspx

Plamen Ratchev on 9/26/2009
Terry, good examples of using sparse columns are SharePoint (where users can create dynamic tables on the fly with many columns) and a survey application (where many columns for particular survey may not have values). In those cases there can be significant space savings by using sparse columns. Here are more details: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc280604.aspx

Plamen Ratchev on 9/26/2009
Stéphane, to discard a new technology does not make sense. It is fine if you do not want to use it, but there are many practical uses. I already provided example with SharePoint, which has to allow users to create large dynamic tables with many columns. An alternative would be to use EAV, which in my opinion is a worst design implementation (cannot verify domain types, not to mention complexity of querying, etc.). And in essence a table with sparse columns is just like any other table, design is the same. It only offers space saving if there are expectations for large quantity of NULLs in the data.

Jorge H Serres on 9/26/2009
Accent of speaker very strong and difficult to follow!

Ahmad Elayyan on 9/27/2009
v.good

Mark Hions on 10/2/2009
You've got to make the source code bigger, so we can read it without straining.

nilanaksha on 12/8/2009
Good post.... Thanks a lot...

Stephen on 1/26/2011
Nice

Jamshid Nouri on 1/26/2011
great demo

Emine Dekkar on 1/26/2011
Great job Plamen! I now understand when and how to use it thx, indeed you mentioned 2 good scenarios, I would add to that a multi-use logging table for ETL or webservices activity where each one may need it's own set of columns and yet use other common ones.

Fay Hain on 1/26/2011
interesting little piece of info, person was a little hard to understand though.

Philip Hickey on 1/26/2011
Thansk you for covering this new feature - nice presentation

Kris Robinett on 1/26/2011
Something I did not know existed.

Carla Wilson on 1/26/2011
Awesome! Thanks for introducing me to Column-sets!

paisan on 1/26/2011
video can not see until finish,i'm not sure what problem

Ed on 1/27/2011
It is difficult to understand this guy with that accent!

mark on 1/27/2011
never thought about this and cool to see this. does it work with merge too?

Dzuy Tran on 1/28/2011
Too strong of accent, and talk too fast.... Plus the video is meaning less, and no particualr explanation why we should use this column sparse

Plamen Ratchev on 1/28/2011
Mark, yes - you can use the MERGE statement to manipulate column sets.

Femi on 2/2/2011
not quite clear in its explanation.

Maurice Ivory on 2/4/2011
It was okay...but I ned more understanding about the subject

Shilpa on 2/14/2011
Cannot understand due to his accent.

kana alexander on 6/16/2011
Illuminates a very useful and obscure sounding new 2008 feature.

Anil Babu on 6/16/2011
thank you

MohanD on 12/10/2011
Good presentation.

Jeremiah on 2/13/2012
I would like to see more about WHY we would want to use a sparse column. This seems like a denormalized db to me.

Jeannine on 2/13/2012
would like to see you amplify on Sharepoint interaction

Prasanna Prabhu on 2/13/2012
Excellent

Rajesh on 2/14/2012
Excellent

aasim abdullah on 2/14/2012
Unbearable accent

George Heinrich on 2/14/2012
I had no idea that there was this functionality...very cool!

Daniel Wolford on 2/14/2012
I appreciate the info. I'm just trying to figure out how having to formate and produce the XML works out to being less cumbersome than doing it the old fashion way. I guess I need some real world examples to better illustrate the point.

Brett Phipps on 2/17/2012
Kinda cool feature that I may use in the feature. Well presented and explained.

A Alagu Ganesh on 3/30/2012
Good



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