A seek can contain one or more seek predicates – each of which can either identify at most one row in a unique index (a singleton lookup) or a range of values (a range scan).  When looking at a query plan, we will often need to look at the details of the seek operator in the Properties window to see how many operations it is performing, and ...

Today, a reader asked me the following: ''How can I find the amount of space occupied by a worktable?. Using SET STATISTICS IO ON, I can only see the number of reads using the worktable, not the amount of space taken.'' What is a worktable? I always like to think of it as a temp table that SQL Server builds without being asked. While ...

It's my first post of the new year. I hope it's starting out well for all of you! New year, but sometimes the same old questions. I got another email asking about defragging the system tables. It seems to be in the Hit Parade of FAQs. First of all, WHY do you think you would need to defrag a system table? Fragmentation is only a problem when you ...