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Good morning all.

Morning.

The world's a crazy place. Truck plowing through the Christmas market in Berlin, 3 people killed in Mosque in Zurich, Russian Ambassador shot in Ankara by a police officer.

Hope everybody is fine?

Yeah a pretty bad day.

Also on the strange side: More electors defected from Clinton (4) than Trump (2).

6:43 AM

But then again: He got the most electoral votes, so we should be fair and give Trump a chance to prove himself wrong or us right.

Or the other way round.

Good morning

And a good morning back

This must certainly be superior going forward. — Andriy M 20 secs ago

Andy K

8:17 AM

morning

8:46 AM

I have returned, relaxed. Merry Hatmess. love you all*

10

@Philᵀᴹ wb

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ I honestly have no clue what got me that hat

9:06 AM

@Philᵀᴹ wb

9:26 AM

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ that was an SO question, so no problems

@dezso was it migrated from SO? closed now

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ no, I meant the quality

ah yeah

Phil's comment at 4 stars. I wonder how many stars will buy him a hat !

Mikael Eriksson

Combining two slows.
Splitting strings in a Multi Line Table Valued function using XML is faster than built in STRING_SPLIT https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt684588.aspx
Must be testing this the wrong way.

let's up it a bit

9:45 AM

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ I already have the only hat I need

6

11:02 AM

Ha, new secret hat

@TomV Which one? ;)

@PaulWhite thnx. I'm not good at reading screenshots it appears!

11:18 AM

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ Ha ha you're welcome, but it suddenly occurred to me that we shouldn't even be entertaining that type of question. Did you see it in its original form?

@PaulWhite not yet

It was awesome.

the Where in the World hat is triggered by simply voting today by the way. Only needs votes on 1 or 2 questions.

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ let me quickly downvote something

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ Did you have anything to add to the answer here?

11:31 AM

I knew, BTW, that I had to wait with that gold badge

Hats!

@dezso Did you earn PG gold too early for a hat?

@bluefeet We've embraced them. Especially @Philᵀᴹ

I see @Philᵀᴹ's hat. Obviously I should have modeled one after him.

@PaulWhite edited

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ Thank you.

11:36 AM

@bluefeet will he get another one if we star his comment to 10 stars?

@PaulWhite exactly

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ <shrug>

@dezso Bugger!

@bluefeet What,no hats for chat comments, stars or otherwise?

You could tell us if that's the case, so we don't fill the wall with stars ;)

I cannot confirm or deny anything

2

There is First Responder but that's not until Jan 1

besides that, it may or may not be a secret

11:39 AM

Was it you or someone else that said that there are no hats for flags?

@PaulWhite exact;ly

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ there are never hats for flagging

we learned in the first year that's a bad thing

@bluefeet Are you confirming that or denying it?

I wonder why. Aren't flags useful?

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ Because other sites in the network are not so grown up.

11:40 AM

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ The SO mod queue was overloaded

@PaulWhite <shrug>

@bluefeet Nice :)

I think the criteria of the hat was to flag like 5 things to get a hat, and users went crazy. The flag queue exploded so we will never do that again

You could have a reverse one next year. Like: "not get a flag for anything in a day or week"

Nah, not good idea.

32

finally

11:58 AM

you got the moon, yey!

we are 2 distinct clans now. the Suns and the Moons

@bluefeet what the details for the Cord hat? I used the Android app last night, voted a few times. Nothing, no hat.

vote on seven questions or answers using the Android or iOS app

I think I did that. May try again tonight.

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ if only I knew for what

and now that I am a yeti, won't do anything else for the next two weeks

or maybe will, who knows

12:14 PM

45 mins ago, by dezso

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ let me quickly downvote something

12:35 PM

I got hat :-)

Where in the world (secret hat)

And a very fitting one, too

Ok. Any ideas why I got it? I was in the review queue on SF.

@hot2use Looks more like cheese than a moon, especially next to your pepper!

@hot2use We think a vote (or even any action on the 21st Dec) triggers it

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ haha true

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ You meant 20th

12:39 PM

No, I meant 21st

Winter solstice

Winter solstice (or hibernal solstice) is an astronomical phenomenon marking the shortest day and the longest night of the year. In the Northern Hemisphere this is the December solstice and in the Southern Hemisphere this is the June solstice. The axial tilt of Earth and gyroscopic effects of its daily rotation mean that the two opposite points in the sky to which the Earth's axis of rotation points (axial precession) change very slowly (making a complete circle approximately every 26,000 years). As the Earth follows its orbit around the Sun, the polar hemisphere that faced away from the Su...

Ah, so +/- 12 hours

Winter?

@AndriyM yes. Or it could be 14. I got it around 10:00 - 10:30. @bluefeet would know but she can't comment

@PaulWhite blame wikipedia. It should be December solstice.

@PaulWhite can't we just call the seasons the same everywhere regardless of temperature

It's probably traditional.

12:44 PM

@PaulWhite your winter solstice is in June

@PaulWhite So you'll be having you Summer solstice now.

December solstice

The December solstice, also known as the southern solstice, is the solstice that occurs each December, typically between the 20th and the 22nd day of the month according to the Gregorian calendar. In the southern hemisphere, the December solstice is the summer solstice, whilst in the northern hemisphere it is the winter solstice. == Dates == Recent past and future dates and times, in Universal Time, of the December solstice are: 2000-12-21 13:37 2001-12-21 19:21 2002-12-22 01:14 2003-12-22 07:04 2004-12-21 12:42 2005-12-21 18:35 2006-12-22 00:22 2007-12-22 06:08 2008-12-21 12:04 2009-12-21 17...

Better!

the exact datetime is in about 22 hours: 2016-12-21 10:44 UTC, according to wikipedia

Apparently it is 23:44 local time today (21 Dec). It is 01:49 right now. So, yeah.

@PaulWhite so much snark

1:05 PM

23 hours ago, by Paul White

@AndriyM No I'm just annoyingly persistent.

facepalm

This was the original implementation, but it was extremely slow to execute. — BanksySan 53 mins ago

@PaulWhite well played

@Lamak :)

SQL Server on Linux: How? Introduction

@Philᵀᴹ ^

1:25 PM

The question is clear enough. I don't see any reason to close it — spaghettidba Dec 14 at 21:01

Were we to oharsh in closing this?

I see @dezso voted for reopening, too (but others rejected) dba.stackexchange.com/review/reopen/82905

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ There were two reopen votes in total.

I imagine the reviewers might have been influenced by your comment.

removed

It seemed like he was asking for a specific set of queries (that's why I left the comment). The answer from spaghetti is generic.

Which might be what the OP wanted, I'm not sure now.

I remember I voted to leave it closed from the Review without seeing the answer. My reason for leaving it closed was that it was too broad. I saw the answer a couple of days later and was really impressed that the answerer managed to make it so concise.

But I forgot to vote then. Voted now.

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ It's hard to be sure. The question starts off specific, but ends up general. My thinking is that his general question was spawned by a specific instance that isn't important. So I read the intro as background.

@PaulWhite Ya, saw that on Hacker News

Nov 16 at 20:35, by Philᵀᴹ

It looks like it runs SQL Server from a Wine-a-like program called palrun. SQL Server itself is inside 6 .sfp files, that look like barebones archive files that contain the Windows gubbins that the emulation/VM layer needs to run SQL Server

1:39 PM

@Philᵀᴹ Yes it was stuff like that in here that made me think you'd be interested in that series.

My investigation was correct :P

Thanks anyway, it's a good article

Yes.

> In addition, the code base is huge. There are tens of millions of lines of code in SQL Server.

1:53 PM

@AndriyM Thnx. After waiting impatiently, the q appeared in the Review queue.

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ There's a fifteen minute delay for reasons.

I was worried that a mod would reopen before I got the chance to vote ;)

i suppose the delay may even be worse these days with all the hat action and the hats scripts running

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ Just out of interest, why did you wait for the review task to start?

ulterior motives: hats ;)

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ Aha!

Seems on time.

1:59 PM

dba.stackexchange.com/review/reopen/stats : needs 2 reviews for silver

That's depressing. No one has Steward for Reopen.

or Late Answers

@PaulWhite and when you do the review outside the Review tools, it doesn't count. That's depressing

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ Yeah but Late Answers doesn't correspond to anything good, necessarily. Our Reopen stats are poor.

The ongoing close/reopen problem.

@PaulWhite I can see closing stats at the tools.

Is there a reopen stats page I miss?

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ No but moderators can see 'advanced' stats for the queues and reviewers.

2:06 PM

And I've just earned the 2nd sesame street hat: 6

No idea how ...

All part of the fun I guess.

Could be due to the reviews, (close, reopen, etc)

@Lamak I am the muppet from now on.

Quiet at the moment, I think everyone's winding down for Christmas. Wasn't much traffic this morning on the way to work either

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ that's a weird muppet, I must say

@Lamak How 4D-phobic of you.

2:19 PM

@AndriyM yeah, I hate 4D

@Lamak what about 6D ?

that just hurts my head

The helmet doesn't help, it appears.

2

2:34 PM

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ That reopen review is 2 for 2 against at the moment.

@PaulWhite will the 5th vote be decisive?

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ Only 3 Leave Closed are needed to end the review task.

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ The third Leave Closed vote will remove it from the queue. The third Reopen vote will not.

The question can be reopened outside the queue, of course

@AndriyM ah yeah, it needs 5, right?

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ Yes

2:43 PM

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ You can see who has voted which way so far can't you?

@PaulWhite yes, from the review list.

The queue allows you to see only those who voted from the queue.

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ yep — spaghettidba 40 secs ago

spaghetti says he voted for reopen.

I have, too. AndriyM as well. Why do I see reopen (2) ?

@AndriyM Yes that's what I meant.

Is it cache?

2:46 PM

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ There were two votes previously, which have probably expired (or been cleared manually by a mod, I don't know).

@AndriyM Aged away by the system.

The aging is very fast today at dba.se

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ Point being you could ask them about it.

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ I voted to leave closed, does that influence the reopen votes? I don't think its that much clearer now

OK there is a hat to be earned but would you vote to reopen otherwise?

@TomV no the hat is irrelevant. I'll get the hat for voting anyway.

If you think it's unclear, it's fine by me.

2:50 PM

@TomV Only in as much as the reopen review ends at three Leave Opens. The reopen votes then start to age away (again) but new reopen votes (not from review) can still reopen it.

*Leave Closeds

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ I think it could do with more code, and maybe I just dislike 2 questions in the same post

@TomV I can't balme you. I casted the first stone

@spaghettidba Do you have a view you want to express?

@TomV That's what I thought at first too. I thought the question should be about the specific problem mentioned. The generic question seemed too broad. But @spaghettidba here seems to have covered the required points rather nicely without making it a chapter of a book, IMHO.

2:55 PM

@AndriyM Fair point

My view, FWIW, is that I'm 50/50 on it. On the one hand, it is a perfectly reasonable question that has been answered without writing a book, and without generating 100 answers.

Now that you mention, I felt the same about the dimension processing question that was raised by community and now has some close votes

On the other hand, what's the point in reopening it to new answers? It isn't going to get deleted.

@PaulWhite exactly, and it isn't going to attract "better" answers

@TomV Well, it might I guess.

2:57 PM

But TBH I reviewed from the queue only, I didn't even notice it had an answer

shame on me I know

spaghettidba

Hi everyone! I voted to reopen because the question was a bit confusing in the beginning, with references to some code that was not included. However, there was a second part which was clear enough in my view, so that's the part I answered. The OP disappeared since then, but it might be usefule for future readers IMHO

@TomV No that's exactly right. There's a reason answers aren't visible in that review queue.

@TomV Makes two of us. I did the same when it was in the queue the first time.

The more convincing argument to me, is that it should be reopened because the closure was wrong in the first place. Not so much that new answers are likely.

There is a lot of "it depends" and "in between" with unclear questions

2:59 PM

@spaghettidba It shows as (unregistered) in the profile, so it's unclear whether they are going to appear at all.

@TomV Yes but it was closed as too broad, not unclear.

They might find this site again and discover they no longer have access to their account, and register anew accordingly.

@PaulWhite Probably because of the 2 questions in one post

spaghettidba

Good point on new answers: I don't think anyone is adding more answers, so it can remain closed for that matter. However, many other questions that are still open are in the same exact situation...

@AndriyM Hard to say. I had an answer to an unreg question accepted after two years a little while ago!

3:01 PM

I dislike that, but on the other hand I'm not sure how to make 2 questions out of it without posting a lot more detail

The other issue being that we don't close questions because they've been well answered.

I was mainly thinking about this one I agree it's confusing because the author is confused himself but I was surprised to see it in the close vote queue

only because by I've seen the same confusion in the wild maybe

Bugger it. I've convinced myself the close might have been wrong, there have been five reopen votes (over time); four question upvotes and no downvotes so it's getting reopened.

I'll let the review complete itself though.

@TomV It was bumped to the home page then someone flagged it as should be closed ... unclear (not a vote, a flag) then the close review ended with a Leave Open.

@PaulWhite I still see close (2) so I can't tell if the review process finished

@PaulWhite That's impressive. Don't know about mobile device users but if the OP was using a desktop or notebook the first time around, that's probably not too extraordinary to believe. It's quite possible for someone not to reinstall their browser or clear the cookies for so long (just not very common).

3:11 PM

@TomV You should be able to get to the review task, no?

In other news:

Some url hacking only gets me to a 404 so I don't know

@AndriyM Click the close link to get to dba.stackexchange.com/review/close/83201

It doesn't show the Leave Open votes, though.

It does if you click on it

and that shows how much I suck at url hacking

I always forget to change questions to posts

3:17 PM

"Close × 2, Leave Open × 2" – strange, don't remember seeing those when I first opened the timeline link.

@AndriyM It's not on the timeline, you have to click the link from the timeline to get to the review.

See you all. Have a nice evening. Enjoy.

@hot2use Bye!

@PaulWhite I meant this:

And I now know why I didn't see it at first. Because I opened the link in the Private mode.

@AndriyM Ah I see.

I only get to see that view in Private mode.

Paul Vargas

3:29 PM

3

Woops! this is fine generates that ^^^ pic.

Ah, so that must be what triggered it the previous time too... Thanks for the explanation, @PaulVargas

I might have skimmed over the explanation when I saw the picture the first time.

The only mystery remains, what is fine.

So it does.

jcolebrand

Morning all

Morning

I wonder if it works with "you rang" as well...

You rang

2

Hmm...

But then again, there are tricks that work for mods only.

3:53 PM

There's a hat for the this is fine thing

@PaulWhite there's a hat, too, if you get 3 rep caps

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ was not sure, but apparently it rang some bells at spaghettidba

it therefore could not be that unclear, even if I didn't understand a word

4:24 PM

Which version of SQL Server is this for? This looks like a gaps-and-islands problem, so the version is relevant for answering. — TypoCubeᵀᴹ 1 min ago

Interesting problem. Not 100% clear but still.

5:04 PM

I'm just before dinner, I'll translate it later to SQHELL — Dudu Markovitz 3 mins ago

If you would like to get help on this problem here, please remove the SO instance of your question. Cross-posting is discouraged on SE. — Andriy M 9 mins ago

Isn't cross-answering discouraged as well?

@TomV I wanted to comment on that, too. If they need 3 levels of nesting with 2012 window features, I'm afraid to look at the answer for 2008.

Especially with that format

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ I'm used to parenthesis SQHELL

5:20 PM

proud to still be hat-free ... just like @Philᵀᴹ

@swasheck Phil does have a cool hat, though

oh. i can't see it because most avatars (if not cached) are blocked.

5:39 PM

@swasheck Nie wieder Faschismus

@bluefeet I don't know if I will ever learn how you do it. I mean, you probably cannot confirm or deny my guesses above.

@AndriyM I can confirm once winter bash is over

@TomV that's what you think. look at whom we just elected

6:41 PM

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ Does the answer you posted perform reasonably you think? It looks good and ugly at the same time

I upvoted anyway but wondered

We can delete this question now. No reason to keep an exact duplicate. — TypoCubeᵀᴹ 12 secs ago

And I don't know a better way so I'm not saying your code is wrong in any way

@TomV No idea, I'd have to test.

It probably depends on the number of times these 15-16 values appear.

If they are common, no, performance might be bad. If they are rare, I'd expect good.

I just tried to write a non-recursive answer.

There are so many ways to solve a gaps-and-islands problem

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ Hence yours has an upvote and the other doesn't

The other uses 2012 features.

A cursor may be the best option for 2008. Or a CLR

got to run. hats!

6:53 PM

Yes the other won't work, and yours is at least readable

8:10 PM

I've got a query that queries from a linked server - it's a pain typing the fully qualified table names, e.g. PHILS_SERVER.PHILS_SERVER_DATABASE.dbo.tblPHILSTABLE. Is there a way of saying "For this query, set the scope to PHILS_SERVER.PHILS_SERVER_DATABASE" ?

@Philᵀᴹ Not that I know of, I've seen people using views to abstract that away

but linked servers IMO are a world of pain anyway

Yeah, was thinking synonyms or views

I know linked servers are Terribad, but needs must for a couple of queries

(Pulling stats from the phone system to correlate with the Helpdesk system)

Linked servers aren't necessarily bad in themselves, but it gets messy with local vs remote joins and pulling over entire tables to join them in tempdb, for simple things they may be ok

but simple requirements tend to not stay simple over time

2

I've already got some ETL on the go for heavier stuff. It's all in hand :-)

I missed talking to you all, it's good to be back :)

@Philᵀᴹ I was confident you wouldn't mess up

@Philᵀᴹ And welcome back

8:30 PM

@Philᵀᴹ If the query is pulling only from the remote tables and they are in the same database, one alternative is to call your query using PHILS_SERVER.PHILS_SERVER_DATABASE..sp_execute N'...your query...'. That's a little messy, of course, also not very convenient when you need to specify string literals in your query.

Yeah, I'm using prepared statements, that won't be fun

8:44 PM

The app is horrible. My phone is worse.

It's not brilliant

@TypoCubeᵀᴹ I used it just to get the hat, the mobile site is simply better than the app