Big Log file that won't shrink....

I have a fairly simple DB, One Log file, one data file, its got half a dozen tables in it that are used for a web based app that allows users to look each other up (think online telephone directory with a few extra bits and you are there), there's a data feed that adds new lines each day as users data changes or new people get added. But this is a couple of hundred or so lines a day, the tables hold about 40,000 data lines as we never delete data just retire it.

The problem is the main data file is about 200Mb, the Log file however is 3.8Gb. Now we did import and re-import various bits initially and clear down tables and such. But I don't understand why i can't shrink the log file. I've tried everything I can think of. I've even detached and re-attached the DB. Still no joy.

The file size/usage is

data file 200Mb size in use 117Mb

log file 3749.99Mb size in use 3719.89Mb

Anyone have any suggestions for things to look at?

many thanks

Steve

Hi,

look here:

http://www.aspfaq.com/show.asp?id=2471

HTH, Jens Suessmeyer.

http://www.sqlserver2005.de

Best way to do a dynamic bulk insert to a table

My current project is creating a social network for the university I work for. One of the features allows members of a group to send a message to all other group members. Currently, I run a foreach loop over each of the group members, and run a separate INSERT statement to insert a message into my messages table. Once the group has several hundreds members, everybody starts getting timeout errors. What is the best way to do this?

Here are two suggestions I've received: construct one sql statement that would contain multiple INSERT statements. It would be a large statement like:

INSERT into [messages] (from_user, to_user, subject, body) VALUES (@.from_user, @.to_user, @.subject, @.body); INSERT into [messages] (from_user, to_user, subject, body) VALUES (@.from_user2, @.to_user2, @.subject2, @.body2); INSERT into [messages] (from_user, to_user, subject, body) VALUES (@.from_user3, @.to_user3, @.subject3, @.body3);

etc...

Or, do the foreach loop in a stored procedure. I know the pros and cons of sprocs versus dynamic sql is a sticky subject, and, personally, I'd prefer to keep my logic in the C# code-behind file. What is the best way to do this is an efficient manner? I'd be happy to share some code, if that would help. Thanks for your input!

I think what you want is something like this. 1 single query.

INSERT into [messages] (from_user, to_user, subject, body)
SELECT @.from_user,userid,@.subject,@.body FROM groupmembers WHERE groupid=@.groupid AND userid<>@.from_user

Your input parameters:

@.from_user = the sending user
@.subject = the subject
@.body = the body
@.groupid=the recieving groupid

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If you going to insert data to a table that alreay has some data, I suggest you to use whatgunteman wrote.

If not, I suggest you to use:

1SELECT *2INTO MyNewTable-- it will be created automatically here3FROM MyTable1 t14INNERJOIN5 MyTable2 t26ON (t1.rid = t2.rid)7

Good luck.

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Thanks that worked like a charm. I can't believe I never thought of putting a subquery in an insert statement.