I really dislike this function, as it requires knowledge of how the table was initially created.

Create table t1 (c1 int, c2 int)

will return different results for this function from

Create table t1...

Why would anyone want to turn off standard ANSI defaults? I thought these options were a legacy thing. Or is there some real reason to sue them still that I'm...

The reason for the restriction is (I assume) that it needs some way of determining datatype. So this will also work:

select case when 1=0 then cast(null as...

I was looking for option 5, the developer who coded this is now looking for a new job 😉

Can anyone think of any real life examples where you'd want to rank over something non-unique?

A very valid question I thought, but one that's more about NOLOCK than EXCEPT, and the explanation should have included the comments later added.

What's "crazy" isn't the final sign. It's that SQL doesn't recognize unary minus. In math, and in every ordinary programming language I've ever encountered, unary operators have higher precedence...

I don't really understand the explanation. In what was is anything "crazy" about the handling of negatives? Whatever the precedence you end up dividing a negative by a negative, which...

Not to nit-pick, but the option is actually called ANSI_NULL_DFLT_OFF, so technically, all the answers are incorrect.

However, the database option is called ANSI_NULL_DEFAULT, which can be set to OFF...

However, if it were a varchar, why would you be converting it to a varchar..? Style codes only affected when convert to or from a varchar from another data type....

The answer depends on the data type of dbo.SalesHeader.OrderDate. If it's a datetime or similar then the answer is 6 as given. But if it's a varchar column then the...

None of the answers is correct. You can index a computed column based on a float as long as it is persisted.

Ignoring the fact that the dates are a week apart 😉

I did a search before replying and that told me that Colorado is also on daylight savings time in May,...

Guessed right but for the wrong reason.
Must admit, I don't quite see the point in teaching us about a feature that most of us have probably never heard of...