Nowhere is the hardware/disksubsystem described

If his server has less horsepower than my desktop (P4, 1.8Ghz, @MB Ram,...

Is she good at it?

I guess the real question to Josh would be... why is this needed in a single string?

5 million records should take 5 minutes or less for BCP and even faster for BULK INSERT (it does less data checking).  Changing the batch size to 20000 will help get...

Probably... but I wouldn't... have you ever worked with a TEXT datatype before?  It's a pain in the sitting-muscles.  I'd likely setup some table with the results of the different...

There's a fair amount of info in Books Online about "bitwise" operators, the bit data type, using powers of two, etc.  Not sure what you're looking for or what your...

Great... and simple, too...

When you create a table, create your "sequential ID" column with the IDENTITY property...

For example... this will create a table, insert 3 rows, insert 3 more rows,...

Like you said, the code has been running fine except for the occasional hiccup... the problem must be in the data somewhere you are not trapping for an error.

Keith and Farrell,

Thank you both for your feedback... My bad... the usage should be like this...

SELECT DISTINCT Name,

        dbo.ConcatStatus(Name) AS StatusList

   FROM yourtable

I agree... although your intentions are good, I'm sure, this is nothing more than spamming a forum.

I have found that most transactions are simply not necessary... for example, if your transactions have no ROLLBACK code, there is no need for the transaction.  The WITH (NOLOCK) suggestion...

Agreed... a little more info would help... should it be a date, and sequential ID, what???

Rodger,

Did anyone change the default datatime format on the non-production box?

This is why you should not trust defaults... things change. 

Perhaps, if you posted the code, we may be able...

Keith,

Yes, there's an easy way and it does NOT require the overhead of a cursor...

Substitute the name of yourtable for "yourtable" everywhere in the code below...

First, make a function...

I', a bit confused... you know the number should always come in having 5 decimal places but you want to convert VARCHAR to INT and you ultimately want to "do the...