thank you thank you, now i understand what u mean by hard code and insert. thanks for the explanation

david and chris thanks for the info

and i agree that cursor 30 times less slow.

but to be honest i did not understant what chris is trying to say

"Hard-code the...

i found the solution using cursor

declare @ingred char(20)

declare mycursor cursor

local fast_forward

for

select ingredien from resipe_table where recipeid=(value of recipeID)

open mycursor

fetch next from mycursor

into @ingred

while @@fetch_status=0

begin

...

thanks for your reply, please can you show how to do this