It just checks that your values are in the format of nnnn-nnnnn and the first 4 are a viable year. Please see "Like comparisons, Pattern Matching in Search Conditions"...

First, recurrsion is nothing more than RBAR on steriods, only it's a bit more difficult to troubleshoot if something goes wrong. 😛

Second, this is an SQL Server 2000 forum...

No, no... no need to convert to a proc... when your code detects that something is wrong, just do a SELECT 1/0 and, trust me, an error will be raised...

What other values would you like to convert?

You bet... easiest thing to see what I'm talking about is to simply run the code and compare to what's in the #yourtable to the results...

Well, kind'a... haven't taken the time to CTE this puppy, yet... if you do, would you mind sharing it, please? Thanks...

The "key" is that at least one of the...

Thanks for the feedback, Martin. Yeah, I have a grand love for such 3rd party shenanigan's myself... my favorite is loading data from a table into a Temp Table,...

Pretty much spot on...

From what you've posted, I'd say just change the delimiter.

Heh... considering that the OP said...

... I'd have to agree 😉

My bad... didn't say it correctly...

We don't allow individuals to create their own databases... just the DBA's. They're logged in with SA privs so no problems there.

We also require...

I happened to be doing a little research on different methods for finding "gaps" and ran across this article. Here's a much faster way to find gaps... and, it...

Now, I'm worried for you... the practice of "finding gaps" in a "sequence" column is usually accompanied by the insane idea that you'd ever reuse missing numbers. The INT...

Gail is 100% correct... if all you want to do is add a "sequence" number to the table, then just add an IDENTITY column as she described.

I always create them as "dbo" and grant privs... saves a lot of hassle...