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dbplyr (version 2.4.0)

backend-mssql: Backend: SQL server

Description

See vignette("translation-function") and vignette("translation-verb") for details of overall translation technology. Key differences for this backend are:

  • SELECT uses TOP not LIMIT

  • Automatically prefixes # to create temporary tables. Add the prefix yourself to avoid the message.

  • String basics: paste(), substr(), nchar()

  • Custom types for as.* functions

  • Lubridate extraction functions, year(), month(), day() etc

  • Semi-automated bit <-> boolean translation (see below)

Use simulate_mssql() with lazy_frame() to see simulated SQL without converting to live access database.

Usage

simulate_mssql(version = "15.0")

Arguments

version

Version of MS SQL to simulate. Currently only, difference is that 15.0 and above will use TRY_CAST() instead of CAST().

Bit vs boolean

SQL server uses two incompatible types to represent TRUE and FALSE values:

dbplyr does its best to automatically create the correct type when needed, but can't do it 100% correctly because it does not have a full type inference system. This means that you many need to manually do conversions from time to time.

  • To convert from bit to boolean use x == 1

  • To convert from boolean to bit use as.logical(if(x, 0, 1))

Examples

Run this code
library(dplyr, warn.conflicts = FALSE)

lf <- lazy_frame(a = TRUE, b = 1, c = 2, d = "z", con = simulate_mssql())
lf %>% head()
lf %>% transmute(x = paste(b, c, d))

# Can use boolean as is:
lf %>% filter(c > d)
# Need to convert from boolean to bit:
lf %>% transmute(x = c > d)
# Can use boolean as is:
lf %>% transmute(x = ifelse(c > d, "c", "d"))

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