What's new in Sql Server 2008? (A string of articles by Irfan AQ)

Trusted, Productive, and Intelligent; this is what Microsoft claims about SQL Server 2008. The latest release of SQL Server 2008 was in February 2008, which is still a CTP (Community Technology Preview) and it has most certainly caught the attention of database developers. There are a lot of promising features in 2008 release of SQL Server and in this string of articles, I would discuss them briefly to introduce you to this fascinating upgrade!

Inserting Multiple Rows in Single Insert Statement!

With SQL Server 2005, you could not insert multiple rows in a table in a single insert statement (very annoying!). If there are 5 rows to be inserted, for example, you had to write 5 insert statements. This is not a restriction with 2008. We can insert multiple rows in a single statement. The multiple rows are enclosed in parenthesis and separated by commas. This is the same syntax which is available in MySQL. Below is the example:

INSERT INTO
AdventureWorks.HumanResources.Department
(Name
,GroupName
,ModifiedDate)
VALUES
('Software Development', 'Research and Development', GETDATE()),
('trg tech', 'Research and Development', GETDATE()),
('Software Marketing', 'Sales and Marketing', GETDATE())