run as a batch, i saw what you pasted was missing an open parenthesis, but otherwise just fine.

i suspect it's a highlight-and-F5 issue.

are you highlighting, say each section one part at a time,a dn when you run the code that is selected, it raises the error?

for the code you pasted , ALL of the code must be highlighted and run together.

--============Declare a couple variables=====================

declare @prikey varchar(36);

declare @lname varchar(60);

--============Assign a variables a value==================

set @prikey = (select cast (person_id AS varchar(36))

from person

where first_name = 'bob'

and last_name = 'smith'

);

set @lname = (select last_name

from person

where first_name = 'bob'

and last_name = 'smith'

);

--===============Use the variables======================

create table #temp (x varchar(36) primary key, last_name varchar(60) )

INSERT INTO #temp VALUES (@prikey, @lname)

select * from #temp