1.

There is now an XML data type

The new XML data type:

can be used in a table column

can be used in a stored procedure, as a parameter or as a variable

can store untyped data

can check against a schema to see if data stored in a column typed as XML matches that
associated schema (if there's no schema, the data is considered untyped)

SQL Server 2005 introduces the new XML data-type. You can store full XML documents
in this new data-type, and you can place validations on the well-formed documents in the
database. Additional enhancements include the ability to query the XML documents and
create indexes on the XML data-type.

And the mapping between XML data and relational data is bidirectional.

2. Common Table Expresssions (CTEs)recursive queries

You can use the CTE as a part of a WITH, in a SELECT, UPDATE, INSERT or DELETE
command.

3. Create .NET triggers

SQL Server 2005 is .NET-integrated to a promising degree (it has distressed us for some time
that Microsoft's commitment to .NET is as hedged as it is), and one useful consequence of this
integration is the ability to create user-defined triggers (UDTs) through Visual Studio 2005.
The Trigger option can be pulled from the template list in Visual Studio, generating a file for the
code to be triggered. The mechanism tying this code to SQL is a SqlPipe. It's deployed in your
Build | Deploy. You can work it in the other direction (i.e., from CLR) by referencing the Trigger
object in a T-SQL CREATE TRIGGER command.

4. SQL Server 2005 configuration is dynamic

If you're running SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server 2003, its configuration is fully dynamic
you can change configuration values on-the-fly without restarting the server, and get
immediate response (the same is true for Address Windowing Extensions).

5. Define your own data types

The user-defined type, enabled by the integration of SQL Server 2005 and the .NET CLR, is a
consolidation of previous practices, allowing you to create application- or environment-specific
types. You can extend more general types into variations that only except values you defineno
more triggering or constraints. Validation is built into the field.
.

6. DTS is now Integration Services.

7. CLR integration
With SQL Server 2005, you now have the ability to create custom .NET objects with the
database engine. For example, stored procedures, triggers, and functions can now be created
using familiar .NET languages such as VB and C#. Exposing this functionality gives you tools
that you never had access to before such as regular expressions.

8. DDL triggers
DDL triggers are defined at the server or database level and fire when DDL statements occur.
This gives you the ability to audit when new tables, stored procedures, or logins are created.

9. Ranking functions
SQL Server 2005 provides you with the ability to rank result sets returned from the database
engine. This allows you to customize the manner in which result sets are returned, such as
creating customized paging functions for Web site data.

10. Row versioning-based isolation levels

This new database engine feature improves database read concurrency by reducing the amount of
locks being used in your database. There are two versions of this feature (both of which must be
enabled at the database level):

Read Committed Isolation Using Row Versioning is used at the individual statement
level, and guarantees that the data is consistent for the duration of the statement.

Snapshot Isolation is used at the transaction level, and guarantees that the data is
consistent for the duration of the transaction.

The database engine is able to guarantee the consistency through row versions stored in the
tempdb database. When a statement or transaction is issued with their respective isolation levels,

read operations accessing the same data that is being involved in a transaction will read from the
previous version of the data that is stored in tempdb. Using these techniques in the appropriate
situations can significantly decrease your database locking issues.

11. TRY...CATCH
In a previous article, I outlined how you can use the new TRY...CATCH constructs in SQL
Server 2005 to catch and handle deadlocks when they occur in the database. This long-awaited
feature simplifies error handling in the database.

12. Database Mail

Database Mail, the eventual successor to SQL Mail, is a greatly enhanced e-mail solution
available in the database engine. With Database Mail, there is no longer a dependency on
Microsoft Outlook or MAPI e-mail clients. Database Mail uses standard SMTP to send e-mail
messages. These messages may contain query results, attachments (which can be governed by
the DBA), and is fully cluster aware. In addition, the e-mail process runs outside of the database
engine space, which means that messages can continue to be queued even when the database
engine has stopped.

Introduction:
In this article, I have discussed about the features in the Microsoft sql server 2005. Sql
server 2005 has added many features like CLR integration, CTE, PIVOT/UNPIVOT,DDL
Triggers, Indexed Views, etc.,
There are many features introduced in the sql server 2005 edition. Let us few features in
the part 1 article.
1.XML Data Type:
XML Data Type included in the Sql server 2005. Before that we have used other data type
like varchar and text to store the xml content
CREATE TABLE tab_SampleXMLData
(
iSNo INT IDENTITY(1,1)
,vXmlContent XML
,dCreatedTime DATETIME DEFAULT GETDATE()
)
GO
Here I have listed few methods to auto generate the xml data from the table using the sql
query.
SELECT * FROM Products FOR XML AUTO

It will return the record in the Product with its details in the attributes style.
For example, the output of the xml data will be like the following.
<Products ProductID="1" ProductName="Chai" SupplierID="1" CategoryID="1"
QuantityPerUnit="10 boxes x 20 bags" UnitPrice="18.0000" UnitsInStock="39"
UnitsOnOrder="0" ReorderLevel="10" Discontinued="0" />
SELECT * FROM Products FOR XML RAW
It will return the record with the row as the element name for the every record.
For example, the following xml content was generated from the above select query.
<row ProductID="1" ProductName="Chai" SupplierID="1" CategoryID="1"
QuantityPerUnit="10 boxes x 20 bags" UnitPrice="18.0000" UnitsInStock="39"
UnitsOnOrder="0" ReorderLevel="10" Discontinued="0" />
SELECT * FROM Products FOR XML AUTO, ELEMENTS
It will show in the parent, child node format. The result will be in the format of the XML
tree.
For example, the following xml data generated from the above select query.
<Products>
<ProductID>1</ProductID>
<ProductName>Chai</ProductName>
<SupplierID>1</SupplierID>
<CategoryID>1</CategoryID>
<QuantityPerUnit>10 boxes x 20 bags</QuantityPerUnit>
<UnitPrice>18.0000</UnitPrice>
<UnitsInStock>39</UnitsInStock>
<UnitsOnOrder>0</UnitsOnOrder>
<ReorderLevel>10</ReorderLevel>
<Discontinued>0</Discontinued>
</Products>
Example for insert an XML data into the XML column in the table. As I said in the previous
versions there was no data types like XML. Programmers have used the varchar or text
column for storing the xml content.
DECLARE @Prods VARCHAR(MAX)
SET @Prods = (SELECT * FROM Products FOR XML PATH('SaleProducts'))
INSERT INTO tab_SampleXMLData(vXmlContent)
SELECT @Prods
DECLARE @Customs VARCHAR(MAX)
SET @Customs = (SELECT * FROM Customers FOR XML PATH('NorthwindCustomers'))
INSERT INTO tab_SampleXMLData(vXmlContent)
SELECT @Customs
Here I have used the XML PATH('SaleProducts').What it does means it will take the name

given in the XML PATH will be the parent node for the retieved results.Generally it will take
the table name.
SELECT * FROM tab_SampleXMLData FOR XML AUTO, ELEMENTS
In the above query generated the xml, which will have the sub xml nodes. Because already
a column have the XML content. So this XML content will be nested under a column in the
newly generated xml document.
2. CTE (Common Table Expressions)
The Common Table Expressions(CTE) is the new features in the sql server 2005.
It will returns the result set.It works like the views.This can be join with the tables,
views,etc.., like tables.This will be working up to the scope of the program.It can be used
only once.
Consider this example,MyCTE will return the result set that can be combined with the other
tables.
WITH MyCTE(PID)
AS
(
SELECT ProductID FROM Products WHERE CategoryID = 2
)
SELECT * FROM [Order Details] WHERE ProductID IN
(SELECT PID FROM MyCTE)
This example shows, how to combine the two CTE resultset.
WITH ProductCTE(PID)
AS
(
SELECT ProductID FROM Products WHERE CategoryID = 2
),
OrderProductCTE(PID,Total)
AS
(
SELECT ProductID,SUM(UnitPrice * Quantity) AS [Total Sale]
FROM [Order Details] GROUP BY ProductID
)
SELECT P.PID,O.Total FROM ProductCTE P
INNER JOIN OrderProductCTE O
ON P.PID = O.PID
3. CROSS APPLY
The cross apply is one of the new feature that will do the Cartesian product.
There are two tables name called table1, table2
Let us see the first table
Table - table1
No Name

1
2
3

A
B
C

Table - table2
Grade
A
C
B
Then the possibility of the output will be table1 X table 2
Here table1 have 3 rows and table2 has 3 rows, so the final result table will have 9 rows.
The possible number of columns will be table1 column + table2 column.
No
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
3
3

Name Grade
A
A
A
C
A
B
B
A
B
C
B
B
C
A
C
C
C
B

Here it will combine the rows in the first table in the first row in the table2.Again it will
combine the first row in the table1 with the next row in the table2.Similary it will combine
all the rows with the first row in the table1.Similarly it will process for the remaining rows in
the table1.
SELECT * FROM Products
CROSS APPLY "Orders"
SELECT * FROM Products, Orders
4. Exception handling using TRY...CATCH
In the previous version we had the @@ERROR property. That has stored the last occurrence
of the errors. Here, they have introduced the error handling method called TRY...CATCH.
It will work like in the programming languages.
BEGIN TRY
// Sql Statements
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
//Handle the exception details
END CATCH
There are some error details methods available. That will return the error description about
the occurred error.

ERROR_NUMBER()
ERROR_STATE()
ERROR_SEVERITY()
ERROR_LINE()
ERROR_PROCEDURE()
ERROR_MESSAGE()
The following procedure will show the practical approach the error handling in the sql server.
This TRY..CATCH exception handling cannot be implementing in the SQL server functions.
Let us see an example of TRYCATCH in the stored procedure.
CREATE PROCEDURE Proc_ExceptionHandlingExample
AS
BEGIN
/*
Purpose : Sample procedure for check the Try...Catch
Output
: It will returns the error details if the stored procedure
throws any error
Created By : Senthilkumar
Created On : September 17, 2009
*/
SET NOCOUNT ON
SET XACT_ABORT ON
BEGIN TRY
SELECT 15/0
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT ERROR_NUMBER()
,ERROR_STATE()
,ERROR_SEVERITY()
,ERROR_LINE()
,ERROR_PROCEDURE()
,ERROR_MESSAGE()
,SUSER_SNAME()
,Host_NAME()
END CATCH
END
GO
5. Indexed Views
As you know, the views in the sql server 2005 is normal view. It is an virtual table. When
you executed the script of the view stored as schema object in the database. When you
retrieve or touch the views then it gets execute and fill the table. We cannot create any
index on that. In Sql server 2005 they have introduced the view called Indexed view or
permanent view. Actually it stores the data permanently. It will not support the after or for
trigger.
But it will allow the instead of trigger.

You may have doubt like how to set the view as normal or indexed view.
There an option like SCHEMABINDING while creating the view. That will decide the view
must be normal view or indexed view.
Let us see an example in the Indexed Views
CREATE VIEW [DBO].VW_ProductsReport
WITH SCHEMABINDING
AS
SELECT
P.ProductID,P.ProductName,P.SupplierID,
O.OrderID,O.CustomerID,C.CompanyName,
C.ContactName,C.Address,O.EmployeeID,
O.OrderDate,O.ShipName,O.ShipCountry
FROM [DBO].[Order Details] OD
INNER JOIN [DBO].Orders O ON O.OrderID = OD.OrderID
INNER JOIN [DBO].Products P ON P.ProductID = OD.ProductID
INNER JOIN [DBO].Customers C ON C.CustomerID = O.CustomerID
There are some restrictions in the indexed view.
-

It must be the two name part in the table.It must be like [DBO].tablename.
We cannot write SELECT * FROM TABLENAME.Moreover it will be useless.
Covering index can be created on this. It can be the combination of 32 columns.
View can be nested in the 32 levels.

6. New Triggers in sql server 2005

Instead of Trigger on Index Views
In the sql server 2005 has added the instead of trigger on the Views.
Normally we cannot write the trigger on the views. But the new feature added in the sql
server 2005, instead of trigger can be written on the indexed views.
CREATE TRIGGER [DBO].Tr_VW_ProductReport_Delete
ON VW_ProductsReport
INSTEAD OF DELETE
AS
BEGIN
PRINT '<< You have tried to delete the record in the view VW_ProductsReport. Sorry! You
cannot delete the record..>>'
END
Check the output using the following statement.
DELETE FROM VW_ProductsReport WHERE ProductID = 1
The output, when you delete the record, it won't delete. Instead of that it will print that
message.

If you want to write any other logics you can do there in the trigger.
DDL Triggers
The Data Definition Triggers (DDL) can be created on the Server or Database. Normally this
is used to track the user ddl events like creation of database or Create the table, drop the
table, etc..,
There are many DDL Events avaiable
CREATE_TABLE
ALTER_TABLE
DROP_TABLE
CREATE_PROCEDURE
ALTER_PROCEDURE
DROP_PROCEDURE
For example I have created one dll trigger
CREATE TRIGGER Tr_DDL_DROPTABLE
ON DATABASE
FOR DROP_TABLE
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON
SET XACT_ABORT ON
ROLLBACK
PRINT '<< You cannot drop the table >>'
END
After compilation of this trigger under any database, if you tried to drop the table then it will
say a message "You cannot drop the table". The table couldn't be dropped unless until if you
drop the trigger or disable the trigger.