Just to demonstrate I am creating a sample table. Since it is sample I have not created any Primary Key on it.

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Employees](
	[EmpId] [int] NOT NULL,
	[FirstName] [varchar](50) NULL,
	[Dept] [varchar](50) NULL
)

Once table has been created you are ready to insert data into it,

declare @TestDoc int
declare @TestDoc int
exec sp_xml_preparedocument @TestDoc output,
N'












'
insert into employees(empid, firstname, dept)
select empid, firstname, dept
from openxml(@TestDoc, N'/Root/Employees/Employee')
With (EmpId varchar(5) '@EmpID',
    FirstName varchar(10) '@FirstName',
    Dept varchar(10) '../@Dept')
exec sp_xml_removedocument @TestDoc

Alternatively, you can change your XML format like this,

declare @TestDoc int
exec sp_xml_preparedocument @TestDoc output,
N'

Ethans
Ajay


Rahul
Sneha


Nilesh
Matharu

'
select *
from openxml(@TestDoc, N'/Root/Employees/Employee')
With (EmpId varchar(5) '@EmpID',
    FirstName varchar(10) '.',
    Dept varchar(10) '../@Dept')
exec sp_xml_removedocument @TestDoc

If you want to fetch your existing data from SQL in XML format,
With values as attributes,

select * from employees
for xml auto

Output Data as Attributes

select * from employees
for xml auto, elements

Output Data as Elements

USE YourDBName
GO
INSERT INTO MyTableName (FirstCol, SecondCol)
VALUES (‘First’,1);
INSERT INTO MyTableName (FirstCol, SecondCol)
VALUES (‘Second’,2);
INSERT INTO MyTableName (FirstCol, SecondCol)
VALUES (‘Third’,3);
INSERT INTO MyTableName (FirstCol, SecondCol)
VALUES (‘Fourth’,4);
INSERT INTO MyTableName (FirstCol, SecondCol)
VALUES (‘Fifth’,5);
GO

However this cannot be used if you want to insert multiple values into the table via your code because in this case you’ll have to write the code to insert the value in the DB in a for loop which is not at all feasible.

So you can write the code to generate the insert statement like,

USE YourDB
GO
INSERT INTO MyTableName (FirstCol, SecondCol)
SELECT ‘First’ ,1
UNION ALL
SELECT ‘Second’ ,2
UNION ALL
SELECT ‘Third’ ,3
UNION ALL
SELECT ‘Fourth’ ,4
UNION ALL
SELECT ‘Fifth’ ,5
GO

The above code inserts multiple values into DB with a single SQL insert query. This is the best means to use in your code as you’ll just have to create this query in your for loop and the query will run only once.

Also you can use the following query syntax for multiple inserts in SQL 2008

USE YourDB
GO
INSERT INTO MyTableName (FirstCol, SecondCol)
VALUES (‘First’,1),
(‘Second‘,2),
(‘Third‘,3),
(‘Fourth‘,4),
(‘Fifth‘,5)

Please let me know if you have any better ideas than this one.
Njoy coding!!!

select so.name, sc.name
from syscolumns sc
inner join sysobjects so on sc.id = so.id
where sc.name = 'SystemColumn'

There is an Add-on for the SQL Management studio that helps you to generate the Table data scripts. You can download the add-in from here.

• After installing, when you right-click on a table node in Management Studio, you will see a “Script Data for [table name] option in the menu.
• Selecting this will bring up a dialog letting you choose a few file options (File, Clipboard, New Query Window) and a few script options. (Disable Constraints, Triggers, etc…)

This add-in works best for tables with small amounts of data. If you have a large amount of data then you should use the “Script to File” option, as you are likely to run out of memory.

This query fires query to the system table that stores all the information about the database.

select table_name, column_name, data_type, character_maximum_length, is_nullable from information_schema.columns where table_name in (select name from sysobjects where xtype='U') order by table_name

Hope this helps, enjoy

CAST is the more ANSI-standard of the two functions, meaning that while it’s more portable (i.e., a function that uses CAST can be used in other database applications more or less as-is), it’s also less powerful. CAST is also required when converting between decimal and numeric values to preserve the number of decimal places in the original expression. For those reasons, it’s best to use CAST first, unless there is some specific thing that only CONVERT can provide in the work you’re doing.

CAST and CONVERT can also be used in conjunction with each other to achieve certain effects. For instance, a typical way to produce a char variable with the current date would be to use:

SELECT CONVERT(CHAR(10), CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, 102)

(The 102 indicates that the ANSI date format, yy.mm.dd, is to be used.)

However, if you wanted to cast this variable explicitly as a datetime or smalldatetime value for compatibility in a specific database column, you could use:

SELECT CAST(CONVERT(CHAR(10),CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,102) AS DATETIME)

This would return the value yy.mm.dd 00:00:00 (i.e., 12:00AM as the timestamp; the time information from CURRENT_TIMESTAMP would be discarded).

The most common type of question is find out the 5th highest value, find out the 2nd highest value, and so on.

The solution for this question goes like this, I am going to fetch 5th highest salary for an employee.

Select top 1 FirstName, Salary From Employees Where Salary Not In (Select Distinct Top 4 Salary From Employees order by Salary desc) order by Salary desc

Enjoy and have fun

EXEC sp_rename
@objname = 'table_name.old_column_name',
@newname = 'new_column_name',
@objtype = 'COLUMN'

USE AdventureWorks;
GO
SELECT   ProductNumber, Category =
CASE ProductLine
WHEN 'R' THEN 'Road'
WHEN 'M' THEN 'Mountain'
WHEN 'T' THEN 'Touring'
WHEN 'S' THEN 'Other sale items'
ELSE 'Not for sale'
END,
Name
FROM Production.Product
ORDER BY ProductNumber;
GO

USE AdventureWorks;
GO
SELECT   ProductNumber, Name, 'Price Range' =
CASE
WHEN ListPrice =  0 THEN 'Mfg item - not for resale'
WHEN ListPrice < 50 THEN 'Under $50'
WHEN ListPrice >= 50 and ListPrice < 250 THEN 'Under $250'
WHEN ListPrice >= 250 and ListPrice < 1000 THEN 'Under $1000'
ELSE 'Over $1000'
END
FROM Production.Product
ORDER BY ProductNumber ;
GO

this is similar to if condition that you use in any other programming language but this you can use within a query to check the value and perform the respective task.