Thank you so much for the considered reply. I'm going to keep on trying to learn a bit every day and hope for more a-ha moments! Thanks to folks like...

I wish I had even a fraction of the clarity you have for these things.

So, first of all, I really appreciate the explanation. It mostly makes sense to me. But I feel I'd have a 0% chance of recreating it to solve a similar...

Wow, I never in a million years would have been able to interpret the data in that way. I still don't exactly understand how you were able to see this...

I'm trying to wrap my head around this and would appreciate some plain-English explanation if anyone feels up to it. I'm trying to work from the inside out, and am...

Can someone please help me to catch up? I feel I'm not understanding the issue. Using the OP's initial data:

ITEM1 ITEM2 ID

0224180 0224181 1

0224180 0224190 1

0224181 0224180 1

0224181 0224190 1

0224190...

Thank you, that is nifty! I don't think I have heard of that before. 🙂

Thanks again, really appreciate the assistance and advice.

I came up on MS Access--if it weren't for Access, I'd never have gotten into databases at all and eventually fallen in...

Oh, okay, thought you were on 2K5 as well. Perhaps someone with 2K5 can test?

Thanks for the continued replies!

This database is hosted at a web hosting company on SQL 2K5. Maybe their box doesn't have all the necessary hotfixes installed or something, because...

I prefer SSMS's GUI.

Maybe it's just an SSMS problem then. I didn't have any trouble creating the table and the default via SQL:

CREATE TABLE testfunc (checkdate datetime)

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[testfunc] ADD CONSTRAINT [DF_testfunc_checkdate]...

Awesome, as usual. Thanks. Definitely makes more sense to have the "real" name referenced from the PEOPLE table rather than from the NAMES table.

Plenty more things to consider here,...

Thanks, I love your replies. 🙂 Few questions, if you have time...

1) What do you mean by suggesting triggers on the view? I didn't know triggers could have anything to...

Best post! Thank you. The article didn't really make sense...