Here's another way to find what the day of the week is without regard to @@DateFirst...

SELECT DATENAME(dw,GETDATE())

Or, you could do this...

SET @variable = ISNULL(@variable,0)

... for inline code, you don't even need to change the value... just use the formula...

SELECT ISNULL(@variable,0)

FROM yada yada

... OR...

SELECT yada yada

FROM wgga...

Thank you for the feed back on your resolution!  It's a keeper...

Shouldn't need to index the view if the underlying tables are properly indexed... indexing a view also requires the view to be schema bound and that all UDF's addressed by...

Guess I'm being a bit picky here... where does @a or @b-2 parameters of the function get used in the function?  I'm thinking the function posted has some other problems......

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