CHECKSUM() and BINARY_CHECKSUM() functions are built in to T-SQL for hashing...

As for your other requirement, I've never seen any code to do that. In a database I worked on...

Luis,

Please post DDL, sample data, and sample output...

http://www.aspfaq.com/etiquette.asp?id=5006

http://www.sqlxml.org/faqs.aspx?faq=39

Why use a CURSOR at all?

Why not just:

UPDATE Tbl

SET StartAs =

CASE

WHEN D01 > 0 THEN 1

WHEN D02 > 0 THEN 2

WHEN D03 > 0 THEN 3

WHEN D04 > 0...

I don't know how you can possibly hack around this thing without any keys in place. Maybe you could add an IDENTITY column, at least, that you could use...

Sam,

CustomerInfo has no primary key at all?

That's definitely a much bigger problem than your current query! All tables should have a primary key... Fix that issue first, then...

Yes, look up Indexed Views in Books Online.

You'll want to keep in mind that Indexed Views were designed mostly to assist with aggregate queries, not flat/non-aggregate queries (some people try...

SELECT *

FROM Customer

LEFT JOIN CustInfo

ON Customer.CustId = CustInfo.CustId

AND CustInfo.SIC IS NULL

Frank, good link.

I really like TDAN as well... looks like they have some of the same writers:

http://www.tdan.com/

peterhe,

Post a reproduction that proves that.

... Or better, I'll just debunk this claim, which -- annoyingly -- keeps popping up all over the web in various "tips and tricks" pages:

(query...

Is it my end, or have the original poster's posts mysteriously disappeared?

Can you post DDL, including indexes and constraints, as well as the execution plan for the query?

If you get requests like that often, you might want to consider investing in a tool like Lumigent's Log Explorer, which will let you roll back without destroying any activity...

Can you post a reproduction illustrating the problem? What are the values of the variables, and why don't you think it's working?

Not currently. I believe that was a problem in SQL Server 6.5, and was fixed in 7.0.