Matt beat me to it (more often than not, lately 😉 ) OUTPUT command in 2k5 will do it just fine.

If it's for a report, why not just leave it as NText all the way through?

If you don't mind the "pivot"...

SELECT

SUM(CASE WHEN DATEDIFF(dd, AsOfDate, GETDATE()) BETWEEN 1 AND 30 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS [1-30],

SUM(CASE...

I really want to know why you're formatting numbers in SQL... that should be done in the GUI if there is one... and it looks like there is one. 😉

Make the UDF accept the table name as an additional parameter and pass it. Just remember that UDF's can't do Inserts, Updates, or Deletes on tables nor can it...

First things first... please see the link in my signature line for the way to post table descriptions and data in the form of executable code... makes life real easy...

Heh... two words...

TALLY TABLE!

I'll be back in a minute with an example...

So tell me... why do you think any of that requires a cursor? Or am I misunderstanding your post?

Sounds a bit like homework or an interview question, but I'll bite...

In the presence of the correct indexes (composit primary key), the first one will probably be a little faster...

The real answer is that you shouldn't store the dashes... that's formatting and it really has no place in the database. I'd make the app strip out the dashes...

Poifect 😉

Heh... AC only if you were off station and the R-12's actually worked. We all know that Lithbro never worked in warm water off the Philipines... we spent 60...

I bought the pro copy of WINZIP... it comes with the command line version. It's only $39 US (maybe less now). No, it's not free... but it is...

Sure, you could write a VBS script, a smidgen of C# or bit of Java code, or any other number of options. ALL of them will be slower than...

Never too late for good info... thanks for the link.

One of the things I've found is that even when you use that method to "disable" parameter sniffing, SQL Server can...