Dan,

First of all...Thanks for actually replying to my question (instead of pointing out errors, duplication, etc in my posts/comments) like Remi did   Your post was actually helpful and responded to my question, unlike the ones I'm referring to

Thanks for this code snippet, I will try it out.  But in looking in BOL, I couldn't find any usage like you've shown as far as the "generic" syntax making sense... and that is why I wouldn't have thought to use COALESCE in this situation.  Is this type of usage documented anywhere else that you know of and will it cause any differences OR function any different than the original code I had?

Thanks in advance for your responses!

Michelle/Dolphin.