# How to Fix SQL/SQL Server the 1024 Column Limit

For normal tables, SQL/Server has a hard limit of 1024 columns. This article explains what to do if your Salesforce table has more than 1024 columns.

## Overall Solution

SQL/Server will support up to 30,000 columns per table but to achieve this columns above the 1024 limit must be created as SPARSE columns. A sparse column is a column whose value is stored in a special column that contains an XML document. Naturally, sparse columns are more expensive to search and update than regular columns but they do provide a way to get past the 1024 limit.

The produced to fix a problem table is:

1. Turn a table into a wide table by adding a new column to hold sparse column values.
2. Identify which columns to change to sparse columns.
3. ALTER the definition of the identified columns to be sparse.

## Example

The following example code creates a regular table and then turns it into a wide table and changes most of its columns to be sparse.

CREATE TABLE SparseExample (

id BIGINT IDENTITY

,name VARCHAR(50)

,address VARCHAR(255)

,other VARCHAR(MAX)

);

ALTER TABLE SparseExample ADD sparseColumns XML COLUMN\_SET FOR ALL\_SPARSE\_COLUMNS;

ALTER TABLE SparseExample ALTER COLUMN name VARCHAR(50) SPARSE;

ALTER TABLE SparseExample ALTER COLUMN address VARCHAR(255) SPARSE;

ALTER TABLE SparseExample ALTER COLUMN other VARCHAR(MAX) SPARSE;

INSERT INTO SparseExample(name,address,other) VALUES(‘Capstorm’, ‘Florida’, ‘Now is the time for all good men…’);

SELECT name, address,other, sparseColumns FROM SparseExample

## For Additional Help

Google *SQL Server Wide Table* and you will find many helpful articles.


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