Mark,

I'm thinking that you did not try the code.  Use the table build code to build the table and the related indexes.  Then do an execution plan on the code...

Can you "sticky" this to the SQLServerCentral home page (ie. "How to ask a question and what to do with the answer" section) and force newbies to do a read (wishful...

Make sure you run the code several times where indicated... you'll both be surprised... and remember the situation may change if a join is involved...

--Drop table MyHead

GO

--===== Create...

Actually, since RedGate just procurred this site, try RedGate SQL Compare

Yes, it will fail if your server isn't setup to "see" the path.  The SQL Server "service" must be started as a power user that can "see" the UNC path...

IF you will always have 4 columns, then this will work nicely...

DECLARE @TestText VARCHAR(100)

    SET @TestText = 'FIN - TIN - LIN - BIN'

 SELECT PARSENAME(REPLACE(@TestText,' -...

You bet, Sol,

Sorry for the apparent rambling  in my last post... was a bit late and I just started typing without much thought to...

James,

I did a search in BOL 2005 and on google... couldn't find reference to a FIRST or LAST function.  Probably my problem since I don't use 2005, yet, but do...

Heh... Good luck, Yves.

Kinda like when your car runs bad but you won't let the mechanic pop the hood, isn't it Sol?  Heck, I don't even know what your "car" looks like...

Yep... I realize that my response is a year late, but well done, Chris... Very nice intro to some of the performance measuring tools that are available in SQL Server.

Just...

Whatever... it's still called a cross-post and will tick off some of the people trying to help because the problem is scattered across 3 posts instead of on a single...

Yeah... kinda... I normally setup a separate database for "staging tables" of large volumes of data being imported.  I set the recovery mode to "Simple", as you suggest, and I...

There's no single approach that fits all situations.  I've found that there are lots of different factors affecting such a decision... on 24/7 tables, I might use DBCC IndexDefrag because...

Just a note... doing a shrink file may actually kill your performance in the near future...  it's going to grow again... it didn't get that big by accident.  When it...