Navicat Blog

Identifying Columns with Missing Values in a Table Dec 4, 2020 by Robert Gravelle

Sometimes a database administrator (DBA) needs to furnish a report on the number of missing values in a table or tables. Whether the goal is to show counts or row content with missing values, there are a couple of ways to go about it, depending on how flexible you want to be about it. The first would be to construct a query against the table(s) in question, using information that you have about field names, data types, and constraints. The second, more elaborate, approach would be to write a stored procedure that fetches column info from the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS table. In today's blog, we'll take a look at the non-generic approach, while next week's blog will address the stored procedure solution.

Calculating Average Daily Counts in SQL Server Nov 20, 2020 by Robert Gravelle

Calculating average daily counts seems like something that would be done fairly often, and yet, I have never done it. I asked my wife, who is also a programmer of database-backed applications, and she never had the occasion to do so either! So, it is with great enthusiasm that I take on this challenge today.

Why MySQL (Still) Tops the List of Most Popular Database Platforms Nov 16, 2020 by Robert Gravelle

Choosing between commercial and open source database offerings is not an easy one as many popular commercial databases are made available to developers and/or students at a greatly reduced cost or even for free. In other cases, the parent companies offer similar open source versions of their enterprise level products.

Preventing the Occurrence of Duplicate Records Nov 10, 2020 by Robert Gravelle

Many database administrators (DBAs) spend at least some of their time trying to identify and remove duplicate records from database tables. Much of this time could be diverted to other pursuits if more attention was paid to preventing duplicates from being inserted in the first place. In principle, this is not difficult to do. However, in practice, it is all-too-possible to have duplicate rows and not even know it! Today's blog will present a few strategies for minimizing the occurrence of duplicate records in your database tables by preventing them from being inserted into a table.

A Guide to Refreshing Test Data Oct 30, 2020 by Robert Gravelle

The periodic reverting of database instances to a baseline dataset is a common practice in development and test environments. Case in point, the office where I work does so on a regular basis, whenever data diverges too much from the baseline. This is required because developers and automated tests expect the data to be of a certain quantity and quality. There is no right way to overwrite table contents, so you should choose an option based on your organization's particular goals and circumstances. In today's blog, I'll share what we do where I work as well as my standard process at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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