Just to pitch in

SELECT CAST([columnname] as varbinary(8000))

will display the string in hex and you can see what and how many non printable...

CREATE TABLE #temp (location int, [name] varchar(40), DOB datetime)

INSERT INTO #temp (location, [name], DOB)

SELECT location, [name], DOB

FROM OPENROWSET('Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0',

'Excel 8.0;HDR=YES;Database=C:\temp\book1.xls', [sheet1$])

DECLARE @location int

SELECT @location =...

or use BCP

exec master..xp_cmdshell 'bcp database.owner.tablename out outputfilename -c -t "," -S servername -T'

in TSQL

INSERT INTO

OPENROWSET('Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0',

'Excel 8.0;HDR=YES;Database=C:\temp\book2.xls', [sheet1$])

(location, [name], DOB)

SELECT location, [name], DOB

FROM OPENROWSET('Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0',

'Excel 8.0;HDR=YES;Database=C:\temp\book1.xls', [sheet1$])

WHERE location = 'locationwanted'

the only caveat with this method is...

Try this

osql -S <server> -E  -b -m-1 -i <not_changeable_sql_script.sql> -o <output>

IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO ERROR_LABEL

WHERE @col1 LIKE 'abc_def'

...but your solution uses some implicit assumptions that are not given ...

But your observations are assumptions also,...

UPDATE a

SET a.[Scheduled Amount] = a.[Scheduled Amount] + CASE WHEN (@Qty - b.Summ) > (a.Quantity - a.[Scheduled Amount]) THEN (a.Quantity - a.[Scheduled Amount]) ELSE (@Qty - b.Summ - a.[Scheduled...

No problem

I had to look twice myself just to make sure

A little tweak to seems (to me) to meet all the requirements (including the priority one)...

My solution...

a possible solution

DECLARE @Material NVarChar(32), @Qty int

SET @Material = 'MATERIAL1'

SET @Qty = 350

UPDATE a

SET a.[Scheduled Amount] = CASE WHEN (@Qty - b.Summ) > a.Quantity THEN a.Quantity ELSE (@Qty -...

Just guessing  but I think the problem is the join between PartRace and IndResults not matching on RaceID

SELECT p.ParticipantID, pr.Age, ir.FnlTime, e.EventDate

FROM Participant p...

Could use if int (if not int then STR will round)

REPLACE(STR(Amount,13,0),' ','0')

or with decimal point

REPLACE(STR(Amount,13,2),' ','0')

or without decimal point but including decimal part

STUFF(REPLACE(STR(Amount,14,2),' ','0'),12,1,'')

If the fields are varchar then

create the numbers table thus

CREATE TABLE [numbers] (number int PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED)

and populate with numbers from 1 to 8000

and use

DECLARE @result varchar(8000)

SET @result...

The same without nesting

CASE

WHEN IsPage=1 THEN 'Page'

WHEN IsFolder=1 THEN 'Folder'

WHEN ISMenu=1 THEN 'Menu'

ELSE 'Unknown'

END