Here's why I say NOT to use ISNUMERIC as an "IsAllDigits" function...

[font="Courier New"] SELECT ISNUMERIC('143563d21'),

ISNUMERIC('143563e35')

----------- -----------

1 ...

colin Robinson (4/20/2008)

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i would also probably drop the table rather than truncate in this instance. You would then get the same Identity value for each date each time you ran...

It would appear that the value for the "val" column is incorrect thoughout the table. It should not have trailing spaces. I'd recommend finding the root cause for...

SELECTs aren't allowed in calculated columns. Nothing you can do about it. Use a view, instead. Be careful when you write the view... improperly written views can...

john.arnott (4/18/2008)

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It's been suggested that "COALESCE" is preferable to ISNULL.

It allows for a list of arguments, the first of which evaluates to not null being returned.

Coalesce is ANSI standard; ...

Dinesh,

How about providing some additional samples where the TradeReference column contains the Alpha characters you're talking about?

Nope... ISNUMERIC treats $ signs, decimal points, and a whole bunch of other non-digit characters as if they were numeric. Never use ISNUMERIC to try to create an IsAllDigits...

Wow... I wonder what the real intent of the code is...

The following part of the code is poorly written...

[font="Courier New"]IF @Center = '' OR @Center IS NULL

...

James_DBA (4/20/2008)

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This further illuatrates my point. An exceptional DBA that can answer 'why' must be able to research the subject. They must know what the right question is to ask,...

David.Poole (4/20/2008)

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If you are in the position where people will voluntarily use you as the first point of contact for database information rather than the last then you are probably...

Just checking... you mean you have no record layout information for this? We can guess that the first 8 digits are in the yyyymmdd format, and we can guess...

Heh...Again, I thought we were talking about "exceptional" DBA's. You posted...

I would suggest that any Exceptional DBA needs:

Sound knowledge of all "core" aspects of a DBA's job

Inside-out knowledge...

Heh... having one of "those" days, Michael? 😀

I agree... even with a CTE, I'll try to return as few rows and columns as...

Gus... nice testing!