Remove HTML tags from strings using the SQL Server CLR

It is recommended that you remove all special characters and HTML formatting. This task can be handled in TSQL code, however in this case I have the opportunity to use .NET and the power of the regular expressions to manage the string. In this tip, I'll build a CLR function which cleans up a string of HTML tags and special characters. I'll use Visual Studio 2010 with C# as the programming language. Check out this tip for my solution.

XLSExport: A CLR procedure to export proc results to Excel

A CLR procedure utilizing the NPOI library to export the results of a passed stored procedure to an Excel spreadsheet.

Read and Write Binary Files in SQL Server with CLR

You are a database developer looking for a common approach for handling read and write access to binary files. You may be a DBA wanting to read various information from binary files and collect it into tables. The code sample presented in this tip will get you started with binary file content handling in SQL Server.

SQL Server random numerics data generation using CLR

You need to generate random data directly into SQL Server table columns or close to the database engine as variables or expressions. Looking at the SQL Server available functions, you notice that only RAND function offers support for random data generation. Although RAND([seed]) is a built-in function, it can only return a float value between 0 and 1, and has other limitations in regards to seed values. Because your table columns may be of various data types, and each data type may have a lower value and an upper value, you would prefer to create your custom random data generators. This is when SQL Server CLR functions come into play and provide a viable solution.

SQLCLR Appdomains

SQL CLR App Domains

SQLCLR

A genuine use for a SQL CLR Aggregate

When should you use a SQL CLR Aggregate? Lots of people have struggled with this one, but David Poole found a use, and has some interesting performance data analysis as well.

fn_fixeddrives() : an alternative for xp_fixeddrives

The idea is to create a SQLCLR table valued function that returns all information on drives in a UNIX df-like style.

SQL CLR Data Types and Performance

Using SqlTypes can have a significant impact on the performance of your SQL CLR implementations. Is it for the better? Read this article to find out.