Heck... even that "depends". The bottom line is that you don't really know for any particular circumstance until you write some POP code and test it.

You guys are missing the point of this particular exercise... despite the name of the post, this is NOT about the elimination of duplicates. Here's what the op wanted...

1....

It ALL depends... table scans are not always a bad thing... index usage is not always a good thing.

The real problem is not going to be simple index usage... it's...

You can say it easier than even that...

Remove one of every type of row that can be uniquely identified even if there is only one.

Ummm.... Use DTS to import just one of the Excel sheets... the one with the column headers. That will define a table fairly nicely. Then, truncate the table...

Ummmm... before you go asking another question... how about letting us know if the fix for the previous question worked...

Ross McMicken (6/30/2008)

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I would love to improve the vendor package I support, but management won't let me unless I can convince the vendor to make the change. Which happens occasionally....

The second mouse always get's the cheese from the trap... 😛

Of course the following is returning both values as the same ID...

SELECT GetNewID as a,

GetNewID as b

FROM dbo.GetNewID

GetNewID returns just one row...

It will vary from machine to machine... except on Tuesdays... 😛

Please define what the US non-special characters are...

Thanks for that... good to know! 🙂

GSquared (6/30/2008)

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I've seen the same thing happen when someone discovers "all the wonderful performance benefits" of "with (nolock)" and just goes crazy including it in everything. (I think every...

Matt Miller (6/26/2008)

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In my mind, the bigger problem isn't that bad code occurs, or that sloppy developers put it out; the bigger problem is that it's allowed to continue to...

Antares686 (6/26/2008)

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You could go to your bosses and propose the idea of a DBA doing code quality exams and explain they improve performance, can reduce unexpected downtime and overall produce...