Execute Dynamic SQL commands in SQL Server

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In some applications having hard-coded SQL statements is not appealing, because of the dynamic nature of the queries being issued against the database server. Because of this sometimes there is a need to dynamically create a SQL statement on the fly and then run that command. This can be done quite simply from the application perspective where the statement is built on the fly whether you are using ASP.NET , ColdFusion or any other programming language. But how do you do this from within a SQL Server stored procedure? SQL Server offers a few ways of running a dynamically built SQL statement. These ways are: Writing a query with parameters Using EXEC Using sp_executesql Writing a query with parameters This first approach is pretty straightforward if you only need to pass parameters into the WHERE clause of your SQL statement. Let’s say we need to find all records from the Customers table where City = ‘London’. This can be done easily as the following example shows. ...
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How to return random results from SQL SERVER

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Sometimes you want to display 4 random articles/pics/you name it on your web page and you don’t want to write a lot of code.
SQL SERVER 2000 has a neat little function called NEWID() that can help you out.
Run the code below from Query Analyzer and keep hitting F5.
You will see that the results will be different every time.

USE pubs

SELECT top 4 * FROM dbo.authors
ORDER BY NEWID()

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