if the job description u were supposed to receive prior the interview DID NOT specifically mention all those things he asked you, then

1. he should not have asked those questions...

same applies I guess to cols NUM1,NUM2,NUM3,NUM4,NUM5 - whay to use string values for those?

why are u inserting a string '12' into a fld that is called NUM_ID (P.Key)? Wouldn't it be more logical to use integer type for this fld?

or if u use ADO.NET to connect to yr server and do some data processing, u can use this class to split strings according to Regular Expression pattern:

using

Qovinn, I guess I did it the way quite similar to yr: used a temp table:

--update display_order in all 15 tables

Declare @n int

Declare @n_str varchar(55)

declare @recIDmin int

declare @recIDmin_str varchar(55)

declare @TblName...

Qovinn,

i haven't tried yr code yet, I'll definitely do. Thanks for yr time posting it!

ic it really works Steve. Tnaks a lot for the science! U right about reading, we could not get anywhere w/o it. If only I had more free time..

Ray;

i still cannot see how var @RecIDmin gets assigned a value equal to:

'select min(record_id) from ' + @TblName

that's what I wanted to be done in the first place.

Thanks

u r missing the name of yr fld in the query:

WHERE (Staff_Type = 'I' OR Staff_Type = 'P') AND Status = 1

u may also rewrite the above as:

WHERE Staff_Type IN ('I', 'P')...

AFAIknow there is no native, built-in command or function in MS SQL Server for this.

U'd have to do the rick yourself. Create a mapping table in which link all the...

the task like this can be (and should be) much easier accomplished in ADO.NET by implementing the following steps:

1. connect to the SQL server

2. fetch all the data from your source...

my colleague just said that there is an configuration option in SQL Server to tell it to strip all trailing white spaces before evaluation a string. He would not give...

if u need to find an apostrophe ['] in a string, u'll have to escape it with another apostrophe. That's exactly what Remi did in his post's code line.

Ccnversely. if...

they are not equal in MS SQL 2000. I tried this

select ascii('')

--returns NULL

select ascii(' ')

--returns 32

still:

IF '' = ' '

     SELECT 'equal'

ELSE

     SELECT 'not equal'

--returns 'equal'

?

still cannot understand why

IF '' = ' '

     SELECT 'equal'

ELSE

     SELECT 'not equal'

--returns 'equal'

anyone have an idea?