Yeah, interviewers ask such questions. It's a good lead in to test simple basics before you get into "what would you do if..." type stuff.

There's no real point in...

LeeBear35 (1/22/2009)

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GSquared (1/22/2009)

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Joe Celko (1/22/2009)

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getdate()?? Didn't you mean to say CURRENT_TIMESTAMP? We want to use all the ANSI/ISO stuff that Microsoft will give us instead of UNIX dialect...

I don't see a temp table in that query. They should start with # on the name. The table with "Temp" in the table name is defined as...

You'll need to use IsNull() and set the second value to 0 for the columns that can come back null. Then, for the date, check out "Cast and Convert"...

Joe Celko (1/22/2009)

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getdate()?? Didn't you mean to say CURRENT_TIMESTAMP? We want to use all the ANSI/ISO stuff that Microsoft will give us instead of UNIX dialect museum exhibits....

You could control that through a proc that creates both at the same time. Might be a bit of a pain to put together, but it could certainly check...

One thing at a time? Is this guy using a computer built in the 1950s?????

Luke L (1/22/2009)

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Yeah I'm aware of their product and have brought it up a few times for address validation and such rather than trying to maintain our own homebrew system,...

I had access to a copy of the zip-codes.com database till a few weeks ago, and then changed jobs, so I can't check it for you now. I know...

There are a number of ways to get that. The best one is build a calendar table and use that.

Beyond that, assuming you're using SQL 2005, here's one way:

;with...

The combined index should be fine.

I actually had something a while back that worked better procedurally than set-based, similar to the PIN code thing here.

Six character alpha-numerics, each one needs to be unique, certain limitations...

Check the compatibility of the databases you are running that in, on both instances. One of them is probably set on 90 and the other on 80. That's...

That's from encryption in the SSIS package.

The simple solution is, when you save the SSIS package, save it to the SQL Server, using the "Save a copy of ..." option...

Jeff Moden (1/22/2009)

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GSquared (1/22/2009)

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Because violations of first normal form are so much fun! And the entertainment value from trying to work out delete and update code for string lists...