Depends if the table has indexes

If not then either will use a Table Scan

If the column is indexed SUBSTRING will use Index Scan and LIKE will use Index Seek

If the...

SELECT TOP 5 c_id

FROM (SELECT DISTINCT o_date, c_id FROM @table) a

ORDER BY o_date DESC, c_id ASC

Are you worried about readability or performance?

Both It depends on...

Yep but 'I did it my way' to avoid the third PATINDEX

Is it top 5 per date?

if so then

SELECT a.o_date, a.c_id

FROM (SELECT o_date, c_id FROM GROUP BY o_date, c_id) a

WHERE a.c_id IN

(SELECT TOP 5 b.c_id

FROM ...

or

STUFF(STUFF([string],PATINDEX('%[0-9]PT%',[string])+1,255,''),1,PATINDEX('% [.0-9]%PT%',[string]),'')

Agree not enough info and too many ambiguities.

My guess would be

DECLARE @date datetime

SELECT @date = MAX([date])

FROM

WHERE [date] < @currentdate...

David is great in guessing what people want....

Thanks Jesper, I owe it to my Ouija board

Not me personally

but if you search this forum there will be plenty of advice

two threads to get you going

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/shwmessage.aspx?forumid=8&messageid=5834

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/shwmessage.aspx?forumid=8&messageid=17678

DECLARE @max-2 int, @id int, @sql nvarchar(1000)

CREATE TABLE #temp1([ID] int IDENTITY(1,1), COLUMN_NAME sysname)

INSERT INTO #temp1(COLUMN_NAME) SELECT COLUMN_NAME

FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS

WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'TEST' AND COLUMN_NAME LIKE 'Ext%'

SET...

How about this then

SELECT MIN(CODE) AS

FROM (SELECT TOP 3 CODE

FROM

WHERE ENDDATE < @datein

ORDER BY CODE DESC) x...

How about

SELECT b.CODE

FROM a

INNER JOIN b ON b.[ID] = a.[ID]-3

WHERE @datein BETWEEN a.STARTDATE AND a.ENDDATE

or have I got this completely wrong

Not sure what you mean by match prob. Can you post ddl and sample data plus expected output?

I would write your query like this

select ssg.Name + '  ' + supt.Name ...

DECLARE @months int

SET @months = (YEAR(GETDATE()) * 12) + MONTH(GETDATE())

SELECT [Year],[Month],SUM(ViewCount) AS Downloads

FROM FileViews

WHERE ([Year] * 12) + [Month] BETWEEN @months-2 AND @months

GROUP BY [Year],...

Depending on what your 'Upload data from txt file to the table' process is you caould put the file exists test, truncate and load all in one step.

Or check the...