The part of the article I loved is where it was pionted out how many integers I'm wasting. My boss will kill me if I do it at work,...

D'oh!

Here I was all smug 😎 about: -1*sign(@a)*@a

when yours: (-1)*abs(@a)

is even more elegant. 🙂

B.A. in Anthropology (with a heavy tilt toward Archaeology).

Though between 1995 (when I was kicked out of university) and 2003 (when I finally graduated from that same university) is when...

Here's another way to always endup with a negative number (this works whether you start with a positive or a negative number):

DECLARE @a INT

SET @a = 1

SET @a = (-1)*sign(@a)*@a

Select...

I was wondering the usefulness myself. Unless you store elsewhere data to put back in the decimal, I can't imagine the number being very useful. But I'm sure...

Fixed for 12345.0

Declare @original decimal(25,10)

Set @original = 12345.0 -- 09876504321.120345678

IF (@Original-(cast(@Original as bigint))) = 0

select cast(@Original as bigint)

ELSE

select cast(@Original*power(10,len(cast(Reverse(cast(@Original-(cast(@Original as bigint)) as decimal(25,14))) as decimal(25,0)))) as decimal(25,0))

Not quite as elegant...

And for those of you who, unlike me, remember that you can use bigint if int is too restrictive, this works as well as my last post, and doesn't have...

Well, it's not quite ideal as I can't use numbers with 10 decimal places. My method is restricted to 9 digits after the decimal place, but that isn't too...

OK. I've gotten around my the problem with my earlier submission where I was restricted to 9 digits to the left of the decimal, and 6 digits to the...

Thanks to SQLServerCentral.com I can lie, cheat, and steal.

I lie around the site, soaking up information by reading articles, scripts, challenges, etc.

I cheat the future by reading about issues others...

Now keep in mind, I'm still kind of a newbie, but this seems to work ok. Though it gacks if you use more than 9 digits before or more...

The other side of this coin is the interviewer who doesn't have the decency to let you know you've been passed. This has only happened to me once, but...