A very nice article, though isnt there a better way of building the Column lists than using an XML?

Could you not just do this

Declare @var varchar(2000) = ''

Select @var=@var+','+COLUMN_NAME

from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS

Where TABLE_SCHEMA='<schema>' and TABLE_NAME ='<table>'

Select Substring(@var,2,len(@var)-2)