Word searching/matching in SQL Server

This is a sample of how to match strings which are not exact and have a different order of words. Usually the strings have similar digit patterns but the words may be in different order.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48380545/fuzzy-string-matching-sql-words-in-different-order

Another approach is using TF*IDF. This is known as Term Frequency and Inverse Document Frequency. Here is a reference;

TF*IDF in C# example

SSIS Fuzzy lookup has a good support for this;

Fuzzy lookup using SSIS

The transaction log for database ‘SampleDb’ is full due to ‘LOG_BACKUP’.

The ETL process worked fine for the last 3 days. Today it started failing. The reason, Log_Backup. The database was in Full recovery mode and transaction log got full.

As a matter of fact, the staging database has to be in Simple recovery mode.

First to view disk space occupied by database, run this;

sp_helpdb SampleDb

To change database recovery model, run this;

USE SampleDb
GO
SELECT * FROM sys.database_files

--Truncate the log by chaning the database recovery model to SIMPLE
ALTER DATABASE SampleDb
SET RECOVERY SIMPLE
GO

--Shrink the truncated log file to 1MB
DBCC SHRINKFILE (SampleDb, 1)
GO

--Reset the database recovery model, if required
/*
ALTER DATABASE SampleDb
SET RECOVERY FULL
GO
*/

If DBCC SHRINKFILE takes longer, we can use following command to see the progress;

select * from sys.dm_exec_requests

There is a Percentage_Completed and Estimated_Completion_time columns. These columns are not populate for every operation, but they are for shrink. You can find the row for your connection during the shrinking, and inspect the values to get an estimate of completion time. If the values are not changing, you’ll need to investigate whether the process is blocking something.

Upon checking the database’s Log file growth setting, the log file was limited growth of 1GB. So what happened is when the job ran and it asked SQL server to allocate more log space, but the growth limit of the log declined caused the job to failed. I modified the log growth and set it to grow by 50MB and Unlimited Growth and the error went away.

Resource

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21228688/the-transaction-log-for-database-is-full-due-to-log-backup-in-a-shared-host/21235001

Using SSIS to pull data in chunks from remote server

Recently I hit by server memory issue while running SSIS package. I was getting binary data from remote server but the production server was unable to process it because of limited memory.

There are two choices to resolve this. Increase server memory. This wouldn’t solve the problem because the data will grow day by day.

The second is to split the batch into multiple batches say, 300 records per batch. if there are 2000 records then it would be 7 round trips to the remote server to load the data. 6 full 300 and seventh one would be 200.

Here is the design;

I will be using SQL OFFSET FETCH Feature and SSIS Script component for this. For an OLEDB example you can click on the link under Resources.

Declare four variables as follows:

1) vRowCount (Int32): Stores the total number of rows in the source table
2) vRC_IncrementValue (Int32): Stores the number of rows we need to specify in the OFFSET 
3) vRC_Increment: (Int32): Stores the number of rows we need to specify in this operation
4) vRCChunkValue (Int32): Specifies the number of rows in each chunk of data in this operation 
5) vRCBatchValue (Int32): Specifies the number of rows in each chunk of data

After declaring the variables, we assign a default value for the vRC_ChunkValue variable; in this example, we will set it to 100.

Our select query inside Script source component is like this;

string vSqlStatement = $@"
            SELECT *
	     FROM [dbo].[tblSample] 
	     WHERE 1=1
            -- get chunks
            ORDER BY SampleID
            OFFSET {Variables.vRCIncrementValue} ROWS
            FETCH NEXT {Variables.vRCBatchValue} ROWS ONLY";

Next, Add an Execute SQL Task to get the total number of rows from source table and change result set property to Single Row;

Assign the return value to vRowCount variable.

Next, add two expression task to copy values from operating variables to query variables;

Next, Add a For Loop Container, with the following configuration;

Add a data flow task inside For Loop Container. Add a script component and configure it as source;

Configure Data output on Inputs and Outputs tab;

Configure Connection on Connection Manager tab;

Click “Edit Script” and make these changes;

IDTSConnectionManager100 connMgr;
SqlConnection sqlConn;
SqlDataReader sqlReader;

public override void AcquireConnections(object Transaction)
{
    //base.AcquireConnections(Transaction);
    connMgr = this.Connections.GoldenConn;
    sqlConn = (SqlConnection)connMgr.AcquireConnection(null);

}

public override void ReleaseConnections()
{
    //base.ReleaseConnections();
    connMgr.ReleaseConnection(sqlConn);
}

public override void PreExecute()
{
    base.PreExecute();

    //create sql statement
    string vSqlStatement = $@"
    SELECT *
    FROM [dbo].[tblSample] 
    WHERE 1=1
    -- get chunks
    ORDER BY SampleID
    OFFSET {Variables.vRCIncrementValue} ROWS
    FETCH NEXT {Variables.vRCBatchValue} ROWS ONLY";

    //MessageBox.Show(vSqlStatement);

    SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(vSqlStatement, sqlConn);
    /*
   7200 sec = 120 min = 2 hours. This can be set to 0 for non timeout at all
   Will this work? It also depends on server timeout settings. In most SQL install, SQL default timeout for remote queries is 600 seconds, 10 minutes.
   */
   cmd.CommandTimeout = 7200;
   sqlReader = cmd.ExecuteReader();
}

public override void PostExecute()
{
    base.PostExecute();
    sqlReader.Close();
}

public override void CreateNewOutputRows()
{
    try
    {
        while (sqlReader.Read())
        {
            {
                SampleDataBuffer.AddRow();
                SampleDataBuffer.SampleID = sqlReader.GetString(0);
                SampleDataBuffer.AddDate = sqlReader.IsDBNull(7) ? null : sqlReader.GetString(7);
            }
        }
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        //set to true to cause execution to abort
        bool cancel = false;
        //raise the error event to SSIS
        ComponentMetaData.FireError(-1, "CreateNewOutputRows()", ex.Message, "", -1, out cancel);
    }
}

Next, Add Script task inside For Loop container to calculate remaining rows;

Edit Script and add this;

// make sure all rows are accounted for
int rowCount = (int)Dts.Variables["User::vRowCount"].Value;
int rowIncrement = (int)Dts.Variables["User::vRC_Increment"].Value;
int rowChunkValue = (int)Dts.Variables["User::vRC_ChunkValue"].Value;

//this is our new offset value
rowIncrement = rowIncrement + rowChunkValue;
Dts.Variables["User::vRC_IncrementValue"].Value = rowIncrement;

//calculate remaining rows
int remainingRows = rowCount - rowIncrement;
//MessageBox.Show($"RowCount: {rowCount}\nRowIncrmenet: {rowIncrement}\nRowChunkValue{rowChunkValue}\nRemainingRows{remainingRows}");
if ((remainingRows <= rowChunkValue))
{
      //short circuit
      Dts.Variables["User::vRC_BatchValue"].Value = remainingRows;
      //for loop assign expression is [@vRC_Increment = @vRC_Increment + @vRC_ChunkValue], let's reverse this for last loop iteration
      Dts.Variables["User::vRC_Increment"].Value = rowIncrement - rowChunkValue;
}

Hope this will help.

Resources

Getting Data Chunks using OLEDB in SSIS

How to get SQL Data in chunks from remote server

OFFSET FETCH is a feature added to the ORDER BY clause beginning with the SQL Server 2012 edition. It can be used to extract a specific number of rows starting from a specific index.

Here is a simple example;

SELECT * FROM [dbo].[tblSample] 
order by SampleId 
OFFSET 0 ROWS
FETCH NEXT 10 ROWS ONLY

This instruct SQL Server to start from first record and return 10 records only.

Let’s write a dynamic sql to get data in batches; For example we have 7 records from database and we would like to get 3 records on each round trip;

DECLARE @RowCount INT, @RowIncrement INT, @RowsInChunk INT, @RemainingRows INT, @SourceQuery NVARCHAR(255)
DECLARE @RowIncrementValue INT, @BatchValue INT
DECLARE @SQL_Select NVARCHAR(4000);
DECLARE @RowIncrementCheck INT;

SET @RowCount = 7;
SET @RowIncrement = 0;
SET @RowsInChunk = 3;

--initial value
SET @RowIncrementValue = @RowIncrement
SET @BatchValue = @RowsInChunk

--loop through all records
WHILE (@RowIncrement <= @RowCount)
BEGIN

	--prepare SQL statement
	SET @SQL_Select =
	'SELECT *
	FROM [dbo].[tblSample] 
	order by SampleId 
	OFFSET  ' + CAST(@RowIncrementValue AS NVARCHAR) + ' ROWS ' + CHAR(13) +
	'FETCH NEXT ' + CAST(@BatchValue AS NVARCHAR) + ' ROWS ONLY'

	--EXECUTE sp_executesql @SQL_Select
	PRINT @SQL_SELECT

	SET @RowIncrement = @RowIncrement + @RowsInChunk
	SET @RowIncrementValue = @RowIncrement

	--calculate remaining rows
	SET @RemainingRows = @RowCount - @RowIncrement
	PRINT 'Remaining Rows ' +  CAST(@RemainingRows AS NVARCHAR)
	IF (@RemainingRows <= @RowsInChunk) AND (@RowIncrement <= @RowCount)
	BEGIN
		--short circuit this loop
		SET @BatchValue = @RemainingRows
		SET @RowIncrement = @RowCount
	END
END

Here is the result of 3 dynamic sql for 7 records;

SELECT *
	FROM [dbo].[tblSample] 
	order by SampleId 
	OFFSET  0 ROWS 
FETCH NEXT 3 ROWS ONLY
SELECT *
	FROM [dbo].[tblSample] 
	order by SampleId 
	OFFSET  3 ROWS 
FETCH NEXT 3 ROWS ONLY
SELECT *
	FROM [dbo].[tblSample] 
	order by SampleId 
	OFFSET  6 ROWS 
FETCH NEXT 1 ROWS ONLY

In the query above, OFFSET 0 is used to skip 0 rows and FETCH 3 ROWS ONLY is used to extract only 3 rows.

To get additional information about the ORDER BY clause and OFFSET FETCH feature, refer to the official documentation: Using OFFSET and FETCH to limit the rows returned.

Resources

Getting data from remote server

Remove all spaces from strings using sql

I wanted to remove following spaces and special characters from these strings;

'a. Personnel '
'j.  Indirect Charges '

I tried to use following SQL to get rid of all spaces;

SELECT DISTINCT TRIM(LOWER(REPLACE(BudgetCategories, ' ', ''))) BudgetCategories
FROM [dbo].[MyTable]

Still the trailing spaces were there. I guess there is a special character involved, so i tried this one;

SELECT DISTINCT LTRIM(RTRIM(LOWER((REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(BudgetCategories, ' ', ''), CHAR(10), CHAR(32)),CHAR(13), CHAR(32)),CHAR(160), CHAR(32)),CHAR(9),CHAR(32))))))
FROM [dbo].[MyTable]

This did the trick and I was able to get this output;

'a.personnel'
'j.indirectcharges'

References

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21585914/trim-spaces-in-string-ltrim-rtrim-not-working