Many ways to skin this proverbial cat:

WITH Buyers (buyer) AS (

SELECT '3, RRRRR'

UNION ALL SELECT '4, SSSSS'

UNION ALL...

To get exactly the expected results you specified, a very minor modification to Koen's query is in order:

DECLARE @minDate DATE = '2010-01-01';

DECLARE @maxDate DATE = '2013-04-01';

SELECT DATEADD(mm,6 * number,@mindate)...

I confess...

Is it too late for me to join the party?

WITH SampleData (A, B) AS (

SELECT *

FROM (VALUES

('0002137}','0004000{')

,('0002137J','0004000A')

,('0002137K','0004000B')

,('0002137L','0004000C')

,('0002137M','0004000D')

,('0002137N','0004000E')

,('0002137O','0004000F')

,('0002137P','0004000G')

,('0002137Q','0004000H')

,('0002137R','0004000I')

,('0002137{','0004000}')

,('0002137A','0004000J')

,('0002137B','0004000K')

,('0002137C','0004000L')

,('0002137D','0004000M')

,('0002137E','0004000N')

,('0002137F','0004000O')

,('0002137G','0004000P')

,('0002137H','0004000Q')

,('0002137I','0004000R')

) a(A,B))

SELECT OldA=A, A=STUFF(A, LEN(A), 1, (A1-1)%10)*POWER(-1, CASE WHEN A1 > 9 THEN...

And why not:

SELECT COALESCE(thing1.name,thing2.name,thing3.name) AS name

?

Sounds like you're looking for a way to build a catch all query in the SP.

Take a look at this article by Gail Shaw: SQL-in-the-Wild: Catch-all queries[/url]

I'm not sure about your question on the joins but using the sample data provided by Geoff, here's my solution (with the "instance" column):

with

raw_data (id, customer_id, product, [date]) as

(select 1,...

ChrisM@Work (8/12/2013)

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Jeff Moden (8/10/2013)

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Brandie Tarvin (8/2/2013)

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How many people (besides Jeff and myself) have written SQL Spackle articles?

How many SQL Spackle articles are there?

Yes, I have a reason for asking. But...

Jeff Moden (8/10/2013)

---

Brandie Tarvin (8/2/2013)

---

How many people (besides Jeff and myself) have written SQL Spackle articles?

How many SQL Spackle articles are there?

Yes, I have a reason for asking. But I...

ChrisM@Work (8/9/2013)

---

dwain.c (8/8/2013)

---

I've been hearing a lot of Tok Pisin for the last week....

I've been hearing a lot of Tok Pisin for the last week. Two...

How about this?

WITH SampleData AS (

SELECT Yr=2012, Mon=7, DesiredDate=CAST('07/31/2012' AS DATETIME)

UNION ALL SELECT 2014, 6, CAST('06/30/2014' AS DATETIME))

SELECT Yr, Mon, DesiredDate

...

?? Mine has neither. The CTE is only there to put the sample data someplace.

Perhaps because it's owned by Oracle?

Still would like to see some test data with expected results.

This sounds very similar to a problem I worked out not too long ago. And for that I had...