How To MD5 in SQL Server / MSSQL

If you need to MD5 a string in MSSQL then use the HASHBYTES function. You can also use other formats too, such as SHA and SHA1. It's as simple as:

PRINT HASHBYTES('MD5', 'MY_STRING')


If you want to return back a string rather than the varbinary HASHBYTES does return, then try the following:


PRINT SUBSTRING(master.dbo.fn_varbintohexstr( HASHBYTES ('MD5', ' MY_STRING ')), 3, 32)

.NET Round Date to Nearest Hour

A quick little snippet here for those needing to round a DateTime in VB.NET or C# to the nearest hour

VB.NET

Public Shared Function RoundedHour(ByVal dt As DateTime) As DateTime
 Return DateTime.Parse( _
   String.Format("{0:yyyy-MM-dd HH:00:00}", _
     IIf(dt.Minute > 30, dt.AddHours(1), dt) _
 )
End Function

C#

public static DateTime RoundedHour(ByVal dt As DateTime) {
 Return DateTime.Parse(
   String.Format("{0:yyyy-MM-dd HH:00:00}",
     (dt.Minute > 30 ? dt.AddHours(1) : dt)
 )
}

It's pretty straight forward. If the minutes of the time are over 30 then add an hour. If not, keep using the given date. Format the date to have the minutes and seconds set to 0 and parse it back as a date.

How To Remember Password in Mercurial TortoiseHg

I've just started using BitBucket as a remote repository for code sharing and how sweet it is too :) I decided to use Mercurial as the repository type and using TortoiseHg with it. A frustration I was having with it, was each time I did a commit or update I was getting prompted to enter my password - grrr!

I tried adding an [auth] entry to to the ini file, but that didn't work. I then came across this little 3 click gem:

Credit to: http://www.diigo.com/item/image/1fjyk/wry0?size=o

And now it works a treat!