Have you tried implementing a Genetic Algorithm in SQL?

Why are we still emailing tables of data?

Can't we have whatever triggering event send a link for a full-featured data explorer to our preferred communication provider (email/sms/tweet/etc)?

I mean......

I assumed it was a trick so I chose incorrectly despite looking at the right answer.

It proves that I didn't know the answer as confidently as I should have known.

I agree. Though I do like maths lessons, I'm not sure what I was...

Isn't this a DIY version of recursive CTE?

I agree....

I was surprised you didn't discuss case inside aggregate functions.

before PIVOT existed we used something like this:

select

entityid

,fieldA = max( case when attribute="A" then value else ''...

Are you using the right tool for the job?

I imagine the T-SQL solutions provided so far are clever (but they looked too complicated for me to casually understand & appreciate...

in case you haven't already seen it: Dave's Guide to the EAV

http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/davidm/articles/12117.aspx

highly recommended.

Mauve (11/14/2013)

---

I assign all of my SQL Server logins to the tempdb as the default database. NEVER master. This way no harm can be done by an application...

if "101" had been an option I'd have chosen it (and been wrong)

I would not have expected isnumeric('$') to be 0

I try to figure these out from in-memory knowledge rather than BOL...

Can you clarify for those who assumed you were being tricky using a string casting function on already-a-string?

STR (...

L' Eomot Inversé (9/25/2013)

---

Then presumably all language features that provide simplified expressions to replace complexity are useless, in your...

Why would anyone generate dynamic sql with comments in the to-be-executed string?!

These subtleties of line-commented block-comment and comments-with-comments defeats the whole purpose of comments: to clarify what should be...

Christian Buettner-167247 (9/23/2013)

---

sknox (9/23/2013)

---

So if you don't need the features that rely on guest access, you can disable it in msdb?

So the correct answer should be "It depends on the...