Blog - Jonathan Crozier

How to output inserted and source IDs when cloning SQL Server table data

If you write T-SQL scripts for SQL Server or Azure SQL databases, you will likely come across the requirement to ‘clone’ existing data at some point along the way. It’s usually quite straightforward to accomplish a clone operation when copying data from a single table to another table, but how about when you need to…

How to keep the host window open after executing a PowerShell script

InScripting

When working with PowerShell scripts, it’s common to encounter scenarios where you want to launch an automated operation on demand by running the script file and then viewing its output at the end of the process. On a modern Windows system, you can right-click on a PowerShell file and select the Run with PowerShell option from…

Using the STRING_AGG function in T-SQL to concatenate row data

InSQL

If you’ve ever worked with SQL Server and found the need to concatenate data from table rows into a string value, you may remember having to resort to using features like FOR XML PATH in combination with STUFF to achieve the desired result. While these approaches are functional, they tend to result in code that…

How to print SQL Server messages to the output immediately

InSQL

When executing long-running SQL commands, it is often important to get feedback on the operations being performed. In the context of SQL Server, the PRINT statement offers the ability to output basic informational messages that can help monitor progress and debugging. While the PRINT statement provides a simple means of outputting a message, it can…

Introduction to the SQL Server MERGE statement

InSQL

The MERGE statement in SQL provides a streamlined way to insert, update, and delete data as part of a single batch statement. With the potential benefits of cleaner code and performance improvements for certain scenarios, the MERGE statement is a great tool to have up your sleeve. In this article, I will demonstrate how the…

Operating on data via a SQL Server Stored Procedure efficiently with Table-Valued Parameters using C#

InProgramming SQL

Sometimes when developing an application that interacts with SQL Server, you may find the need to process a data set such that only one round trip needs to be made to and from the database server. The operation that is being carried out may be intended to operate on one set of data, or batches…

Enable ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation for Blazor WebAssembly

InWeb

Blazor WebAssembly facilitates the development of SPAs (Single-page applications) that run in the browser using C# instead of JavaScript as the primary programming language. Executing C# code in the browser is a rather neat trick, made possible via the revolutionary WebAssembly technology which is an open web standard. However, the default mechanism employed by Blazor…

Formatting JSON with proper indentation using PowerShell

InScripting

PowerShell is a powerful scripting language that makes working with data a breeze, allowing you to import and export to a variety of common file formats such as CSV, XML, and JSON. However, when it comes to JSON, the formatting applied by the built-in ConvertTo-Json cmdlet leaves a lot to be desired. While this may…

.NET 8 Blazor MSAL Error – There was an error trying to log you in: ‘”undefined” is not valid JSON’

InWeb

When developing a Blazor WebAssembly application that uses the MSAL (Microsoft Authentication Library) for .NET packages, you may encounter an error message similar to the following after trying to log in. There was an error trying to log you in: ‘”undefined” is not valid JSON’ The above error message is usually noticed after upgrading a…

How to dynamically build OR filters in an Entity Framework Core LINQ query

InProgramming

Entity Framework Core is an ORM (Object Relational Mapper) that allows us to leverage LINQ (Language Integrated Query) to abstract away the SQL (Structured Query Language) that would otherwise need to be written for interactions with a database. However, while LINQ is an awesome .NET feature, there are some limitations to be aware of when…