Ok, I'm a bit confused... Rose posted "Queries can take hours to run, and performance is the major issue.  To be honest, there is not a lot of relational data."

I'm...

Remi... I think you may have confused a couple of people because you didn't include any documention in your test script to identify the fact that most of your code...

UPDATE Customers SET Last_Name = REPLACE(@LastName,'''','''''') WHERE Cust_ID =  'A34778'

Do heed the other's warnings...

Step 1... For "queries from hell", the first step would be to "knock the hell out of it".  Format the code so you can actually read it instead of having...

Heh... David, it is I who is not worthy... thank you for your continued compliments.  You made my whole day!  Good "seeing" you, again.

Anyway, folks... considering the trully variable nature...

If you use BCP and a format file to import to a table, you don't need the "control file"... just add the necessary constraints to the table and setup BCP...

You bet... thank you for the feedback, Norbert...

Using Remi's fine demo table, the following will actually give you dates and times for half hour slots... it will not, however, give any missing slots... that would require just...

See the function Frank Kalis made at the following...

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/shwmessage.aspx?forumid=9&messageid=153822

Before you make a generic post like this, you should do a search on the forum. 

Nope... I meant it the way I posted it... but your's works, as well.

Ya just gotta love these non-discript posts, eh?

IMHO... if he wants flat files, why bother with the expense of an RDBMS???  Store it in a FILE and maintain it with a good word processor.   And access it with Binary...

Like this...

 SELECT *

   FROM yourtable

  WHERE Dept_ID = 1

  ORDER BY Member_Name

 SELECT *

   FROM yourtable

  WHERE Dept_ID = 2

  ORDER BY Member_Name

 SELECT...

3 different SELECTs.

Absolutely agree... but lot's of folks have designated "work horse" machines where they might download raw CDR's or other info to and then point SQL Server to that box to...

That's the perfect answer... too many folks try to do AI with SQL Server.