to prove a point, we had a contractor for a third party app who wrote an SP that took 6 hours to run!! I eliminated the cursor using the above...

Have a suggestion to make:

Instead of using @icounter = @icounter + 1,

I would use SELECT TOP 1 * FROM TEMPTABLE WHERE IDFIELD > @iCounter at the beginning and SELECT...

Jignesh, datename(m, join_date) gives the complete month name, not abbreviated name.

yeah, assuming dob is date of birth, we are talking of joining date, not DOB, doob!

The first option would have been okay if dob was replaced by join_date. :w00t: