I don't see anything in the requirements about rows in Table1 that don't have a match in Table2, so I left it as an outer join. Maybe I just...

How are the original values stored? Is it a text file? A spreadsheet? Something else?

There's a whole lot of data on this site about getting started. Poke around a bit, you'll find plenty of articles and discussions on the subject.

A lot of it's...

Is this in the old "pubs" database? Sure sounds like it.

Would need to see the execution plan to know where to really start.

At a guess, I think this index might help, but I can't be sure without test data and...

First, why are you using cursors for this?

Second, I see a whole bunch of columns in the Where clauses that aren't mentioned in your description.

Will something like this do what you need:

;with T2 as

(select row_number() over (partition by Table1Key order by EventDate desc) as Row,

Table1Key,

EventDate,

EventText

from dbo.Table2)

select *

from dbo.Table1

left outer join T2

on Table1.ID =...

If you want to convert a string like that to a time, then I recommend this method:

declare @Time int;

select @Time = 123757;

select dateadd(second, @Time%100, dateadd(minute, @Time%10000/100, dateadd(hour, @Time/10000, 0)))

Just ran...

There are times when it's more efficient to do batches like this....

Bob Hovious (4/25/2009)

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How about this one? Fresh off the presses...

1. Create temporary table "A"

2. Populate it with base ids

3. Query table "B" and update one...

There are advantages and disadvantages to each.

First, neither one is a "natural key", so they're the same on that point.

Second, GUIDs take more disk space, RAM and bandwidth than Int...

To deal with times that don't have enough leading zeroes, you can either padd the string, or you can reverse it. Either one works.

The main advantage to leaving it as XML is that it's less work, both for you and for the server. It has a secondary advantage in that minor schema...

Actually, in SQL 2005, another solution that sometimes works is to use an Output clause to insert into a temp table, then use that to manage the loop. That...

Another good one.

And on whatever the medical situation is, get well soon, man.