There is no significant difference in execution plans between GROUP BY and DISTINCT. Each produces a list of unique values, DISTINCT just doesn't require that...

Whups. What I meant to say was country foundries. They even deliver mail to rural metal casters.

Another thing to remember (in the U.S. at least) is that zip codes can also span city boundaries and even county boundaries. It's not a 1-1 relationship. ...

I've actually worked on an IBM system that processed 96-column punched cards. Not eighty, 96. They were about the size of a zip...

Howard, a couple of quick questions:

(1) Is there a maximum distance from a customer to a store? If they live in rural Alaska, do you ever...

You're welcome. Let us know if you have any questions.

A simple crosstab should work. I'm typing this freehand, so apologies in advance for any errors.

select team

,max(case when rotation = 'Primary' then person else null end) as...

Nico, I didn't intend to insult you personally. I'm sure you are a bright guy like most everyone else who hangs out here.

And yet, your...

Whups, sorry Ninja. I just read back and saw where you had already dealt with it.

nico van niekerk (12/2/2011)

---

The temp table was not #tmp but @tmp, a table definition and one cannot create indexes on table definitions. Its residence in memory makes it faster than...

It would be nice to know the nature of what the dynamic code does, so we could completely understand the problem, but here are a couple of thoughts to maybe...

A good carry-away lesson from this is that set-based solutions are possible, even easy, whenever you can define the sets properly. The failed solution I attempted treated...

Drew that's elegant. Simple and effective. Applause, thunderous applause.

Your insight that the relative order of the remaining prods and the remaining slots would...

Halford, I'm sorry but I couldn't make it work. You're going to need a loop, a cursor, or a recursive cte.

Anyone else who wants to try should...

I see the problem and I think I understand where you are going with your proposed solution. It may not be possible to do this without some...