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May 2006 - Posts

• SSIS Nugget: Import data from a website

  An interesting problem has been posed on the SSIS forum at SQL Server Central . The user wants to download a file containing stock information from Yahoo finance and import the data into a database table. That sounded like an interesting problem so I Read More... Posted 31 May 2006 11:46 by jamie.thomson | 8 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SQL Server, SSIS, Dataflow Task, Nugget Attachment(s): 20060531DownloadStockInfo.zip

• SSIS: Custom logging task

  Back in June 2005 I published what I consider to be one of my more useful blog posts amongst my plethora of inane ramblings, "SSIS: Custom Logging Using Event Handlers" . Josh Twist took the idea and ran with it. He realised that my use of Execute SQL Read More... Posted 29 May 2006 09:56 by jamie.thomson | 2 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS

• SSIS: Fast Parse

  I recently spotted a blog post from Mladen talking about the Fast Parse facility within SSIS. it highlighted to me that Fast Parse is a little known feature and perhaps requires some explanation. Indeed, I myself had completely forgotten that it existed! Read More... Posted 29 May 2006 09:40 by jamie.thomson | 3 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS

• SSIS: Warning but no error if an environment variable is missing

  I have spoken previously about indirect configurations and tried to convince everyone of how useful they are. I noticed something today concerning indirect configurations that quite surprised me. If you execute a package that uses an indirect configuration Read More... Posted 25 May 2006 18:15 by jamie.thomson | 2 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS, configurations, indirect configurations

• SSIS developers required!!

  We at Conchango are always on the hunt for talented people to join our ever growing ranks of technical consultants. For a taster of the current open positions see the sidebar on my blog . This post isn't about positions in general though, we have a more Read More... Posted 24 May 2006 14:00 by jamie.thomson | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, Conchango, SSIS

• SSIS: The difference between output columns and external columns

  The following question was asked today on the SSIS forum : "What is the difference between external and output columns?" The poster seemed to be under the impression that external columns were another form of output column - that is not the case. Output Read More... Posted 23 May 2006 21:09 by jamie.thomson | 4 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS, Dataflow Task

• SSIS Nugget: Splitting order detail and order header information from one file into multiple tables

  "I have a file that is a list of orders. Each record in the file contains the order number and the item that has been ordered along with information about that item (e.g. Quantity ordered). I want to split the file into an OrderHeader and an OrderDetail Read More... Posted 22 May 2006 22:32 by jamie.thomson | 13 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS, raw files, Dataflow Task, Nugget Attachment(s): 20060518Split_OrderHeader_OrderDetail.zip

• SSIS: Strings get padded in recordset destination

  FYI Alex Levene has found a problem with the recordset destination adapter. It seems that any string columns (i.e. DT_STR, DT_WSTR) that flow into the recordset destination get padded with whitespace up to the maximum width of the column. There is a bug Read More... Posted 22 May 2006 21:46 by jamie.thomson | 1 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS

• Conchango "clear leaders of the pack" in design and branding

  Conchango have long been known as a company that delivers technical solutions; what alot of people don't know is that we also involve ourselves heavily in the area of design and branding. Well, that could be about to change because Conchango have recently Read More... Posted 20 May 2006 18:28 by jamie.thomson | 2 Comments Filed under: Conchango

• SSIS: Tip for monitoring data flowing into SQL Server

  Due to a few different things, mainly being on holiday/vacation, I haven't been blogging much lately. I do have some in the pipeline (no SSIS reference intended) but in the meantime I thought I'd share a useful little titbit of info. One of the great Read More... Posted 15 May 2006 16:42 by jamie.thomson | 1 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS, Dataflow Task

• SSIS: An enhancement that didn't make it to SP1

  During the long-g-g-g-g beta phase of SQL Server 2005 I requested that a simple enhancement be made to the dtexecui.exe tool. That being that on the "Set Values" tab there should be a UI to enable you to browse the selected package to pick out the required Read More... Posted 02 May 2006 23:32 by jamie.thomson | 0 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS

• SSIS: Variable type change when populated from the command-line

  On 11th October 2005 I wrote a blog entry in which I informed about a bug in SSIS. The problem was that whenever a variable was populated from the command-line, that variable ended up with a string value in it rather than a datetime. The two most prevelant Read More... Posted 02 May 2006 18:43 by jamie.thomson | 1 Comments Filed under: SQL Server Integration Services, SSIS Attachment(s): 20060502TestingDatetimeFromCommandLine.zip