There are a series of excellent articles on Gail's Blog about such things:

http://sqlinthewild.co.za/index.php/category/sql-server/t-sql/

BrainDonor

The MS 70-433 book isn't bad - less than the usual number of corrections on the publisher's web-site for their material (you should see the corrections for the 70-432 book!)....

Nice question - the links are particularly useful.

As I said - I'm prepared to believe I'm missing the obvious...

The idea did briefly cross my mind at some point, but I was fixated on trying to do this...

There is also a rather good 'Stairways' series for Agent - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/stairway/72403/.

I made a very good living from COBOL for...

PATINDEX will locate the start position of a specified pattern within an expression. Have a look at that (in BOL) as a starting point.

BrainDonor.

I'm not sure I understand what you're explaining there.

If the data you're trying to manipulate is in the Select clause, then all you should need to do is insert the...

declare @test varchar(max) = '1234,345-5678,122-789,,,,,'

select REVERSE(LTRIM(RTRIM(RIGHT(REVERSE(@test),LEN(@test) - ((PATINDEX('%[^,]%',REVERSE(@test) )))+ 1))))

There will be other (and more than likely, better) ways to solve this, bit I've tested this against a variety of...

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic786650-338-1.aspx

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic453737-338-1.aspx

Marginal differences, it would appear.

BrainDonor.

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/andrew_kelly/archive/2009/04/10/how-dirty-are-your-reads.aspx

There are also several threads throughout SSC relating to this question, and could be worth a look at.

BrainDonor.

Have a look at Books Online (BOL) - 'views, modifying data through' - this explains the various ways to do such things.

BrainDonor.

Do you have a backup of the database, taken before the deletion?

BrainDonor

Thanks, I think I know what you're getting at. I'll have a play with it later as time constraints mean I'm too close to...

Ah, abuse. Completely unhelpful, pointless and altogether disappointing Celko. I have several excellent articles written by your good self that I still refer every now and again, but this kind...