Another option to look at with the update, is can it be done in pieces? Perhaps in a temp table, even. With complex updates with a lot of...

The reason you're getting 0 on small databases is because this, "sum(page_count)*8/1024" is integer math, and any number smaller than 128 for sum(page_count) will give 0.

Cast the page count as...

Is there a reason to not use the import wizard in Management Studio? Is this a one-time import, or something you'll do regularly?

The format doesn't matter. Dates and times are stored in SQL as numbers. The missing milliseconds will cause it to not be equal.

In datetime, dates are stored as...

Okay, I'm kicking myself now. Should have thought to test with nchar, instead of char.

Yeah, SQL Server isn't...

Which solution are you asking about? Steve's use of datepart in the Select...

I'm getting "£". Didn't check for that.

Tested:

create table #Test (

ID int identity primary key,

Val char(1) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1250_CS_AS )

insert into #test (val)

select char(0xA3) union all

select 'L'

select *

from #test

where val like...

Actually, when I was first learning SQL, Books Online took too much for granted in many cases. Too many circular definitions, too much left out in too many cases.

I...

Apprenticeship is a good way to train someone. Give them simple tasks to do, and some help on those, and work your way up from there.

You should be able to do that from within Windows Control Panel.

My favorite way to do this on tables where you query this kind of thing regularly, is to use indexed, computed columns.

Alter table dbo.MyTable

add DateYear as datepart(year, MyDateColumn),

DateMonth as datepart(month,...

jezemine (5/1/2008)

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you might want use a tinyint for the PK on a states table if it was being referred to from other large tables.

one of the dbs I have to...

Try querying the XML the usual way, return the results as a standard set, then use For XML to turn the sub-results back into XML. Will that work for...

You need to end the alter table command with a semicolon ";", then you don't need a "go".