XML FeedsSometimes the creativity of the human species is truly amazing. Someone needed to export a table into a file from within SQL Server. Now there are several ways to do this like bcp, export wizard, Query..Results To File, SSIS etc etc. Today I noticed someone found yet another way....
This person decided to use a SQL Agent job to create the file. That is still not strange but here comes the interesting part...
Here is what the person did, first a job was added with a query.
Then in the Advanced part of the step an output file was chosen
This of course will create the file, however there will be some output in the from the job itself
The only reason I found out about this was because I was asked how to skip the 'header' in SQL Server. After a good deal of puzzlement looking at this creative 'solution' I told the person how to use bcp instead
Any crazy stories from the trenches you want to share in the comments?
Denis has been working with SQL Server since version 6.5. Although he worked as an ASP/JSP/ColdFusion developer before the dot com bust, he has been working exclusively as a database developer/architect since 2002. In addition to English, Denis is also fluent in Croatian and Dutch, but he can curse in many other languages and dialects (just ask the SQL optimizer) He lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife and three kids.
I'm pretty confident you took the award for finding the most creative and stupid method of getting a task done in SQL Server. 
It is baffling in a way, from all the documented ways that are available why going this path. I mean how do you even find this stuff? It is probably the name Output File that lead them down this rabbit hole 
O.M.G.
Isn't Oracle one big crazy heap of craziness?
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