Jeff Moden (12/24/2009)

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Heh... like Jackie Chan's Uncle says in the cartoon, "And one mo ting!"

There is a way to totally obfuscate the cross-joins if you ever need to do such a thing... here's that part of the code should you even have the need...

WITH E01(N) AS (SELECT 1 UNION ALL SELECT 1 UNION ALL

SELECT 1 UNION ALL SELECT 1 UNION ALL

SELECT 1 UNION ALL SELECT 1 UNION ALL

SELECT 1 UNION ALL SELECT 1 UNION ALL

SELECT 1 UNION ALL SELECT 1), -- 10 or 10E01 rows

E02(N) AS (SELECT 1 FROM E01 a INNER JOIN E01 b ON a.N = b.N), -- 100 or 10E02 rows

E04(N) AS (SELECT 1 FROM E02 a INNER JOIN E02 b ON a.N = b.N), -- 10,000 or 10E04 rows

E08(N) AS (SELECT 1 FROM E04 a INNER JOIN E04 b ON a.N = b.N), --100,000,000 or 10E08 rows

E16(N) AS (SELECT 1 FROM E08 a INNER JOIN E08 b ON a.N = b.N), --10E16 or more rows than you'll EVER need

cteTally(N) AS (SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY N) * SIGN(@End - @Start) FROM E16)

--===== Final SELECT uses a TOP "reflection" back on the CTE's to limit rows

-- calculated by the CTE's to only those needed.

SELECT TOP (ABS(@End - @Start) + 1)

N + @Start + SIGN(@Start - @End) AS N

FROM cteTally

It doesn't slow the code down at all and all but the most dedicated of DBA's won't see that the inner join on all 1's in the various CTE's as actually being a CROSS JOIN. I don't use this method because 1) most DBA's don't look close enough to figure out the original code is all CROSS JOINs, 2) it makes the code longer (and uglier IMHO) and 3) I have to keep my skill up in launching pork chops. 😛