If you are really fighting for microseconds

If Exists ( Select Null from bigtable Where ...) also is a good test with minimal Overhead instead of Select 1

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.... fancy code

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But I still find the best time bombs are what I refer to as 'Surrogate Key' processing where software allows customisations to things like account codes and part numbers and financial processing is carried on a conglomerate of individual elements with no key contraints.

Thanks David, a timely article to point out to my new Developers.

CodeOn

😛