As an additional note, on the point of ending up with words or approximations of words (think words made from H8 (hate), or with 2 (to or too) in them,...

Are you using the full alphabet for this? If so, are you prepared to deal with "IDs" that are obscenities, racial slurs, sexual, blasphemous, etc?

If so, here's sample code...

Alvin Ramard (3/15/2010)

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We should roll back the clocks (and calendars) by 24 hours...

Alvin Ramard (3/15/2010)

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CirquedeSQLeil (3/15/2010)

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Lynn Pettis (3/15/2010)

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Yes, in SQL Server 2008 it is missing the data type. Should...

Thanks. 🙂

What year? (My birthday was yesterday, so I'm curious as to what the actual age difference is.) If you'd...

How are you defining "first row"? There's nothing in the table that indicates the sequence.

If you want to update only one row, and don't care which one, or have...

I'm not sure what you mean by "how many states in server". Can you clarify that part of the question?

jcrawf02 (3/15/2010)

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Ok, so painting a flame target on...

Steve Jones - Editor (3/15/2010)

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GSquared, I like the idea of the parameter. That would be very handy to know during the creation of modification of some DDL statement. That could...

I'm currently doing the same. No problem setting it up, running it, etc. Just update before you start the service.

jcrawf02 (3/15/2010)

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I think this is a great idea. I have yet to work somewhere that the executives or managers were the only ones who came up with ideas that would...

It sounds like you have a pretty standard "upsert" situation there. (That's short for "update or insert".)

Most of those can be handled very simply by doing an update on...

Try a couple of solutions.

The SQL 2008 "Merge" command might do exactly what you need. Try that.

Truncate and reload works, but gets slower and slower as you get more...

Okay. Now that I've read the article, I have to say I like some of the ideas in it.

It's nothing particularly original, but it's a good expression of the...