Yes...and the price tag will be your fault as well. Get used to it - it's the way of the world.

I'm not sure about using bcp, but here's how I would do it in a procedure.

BULK INSERT incoming_data

FROM 'L:\CurrentData.txt'

WITH (DATAFILETYPE = 'CHAR',

...

If you're making the move from Oracle to SQL Server, here are my thoughts on the major differences.

1. SSMS is so much faster and more capable than Oracle Enterprise Manager,...

There are a couple of ways to go about this. The simplest is:

select replace(replace(replace('in a delete, insert, or update trigger', 'delete', 'del'), 'insert', 'ins'), 'update', 'upd')

Don't forget about asking for a left-handed, metric crescent wrench.

Yes, that was a good one - it got me. :hehe:

The error says that you have an invalid column number in your format file. I know it can be a bit confusing at first, but once you really get...

Lowell (8/6/2013)

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i've seen that a few times, that nul character is CHAR(0), and a great example of why you need a little better text editor; plain old windows notepad won't...

For repeated data loads from text files, I find it better to use a format file to control what goes where. It takes a bit of work to set...

If you enable identity insert in the GUI, then you have to include and map the identity field.

If you have it unchecked, you should exclude the field (set to ignore)...

Do you have any open transaction somewhere? In another window perhaps?

It sounds a little like "A Wrinkle in Time" but it's been quite a few years for me, so I might have it wrong.

Thanks. Honestly, I'm just glad to hear that he's okay. I found a recent post and that says he's okay and even has internet access, so at least...

Sorry...I meant the "questions getting worse thread" in my previous post. Is that "the thread"?

That's good to hear. Which thread? The "NOT about SQL" one?