First, create a translation table... here's the code...

--===== Create the translation table and seed with

     -- 62 numbers from 0 to 61

     -- (10 digits + 26...

Unfortunately, all data needs to be accessed all the time in the quickest time possible. When processing new data, a complete read of previous related totals (back to day...

Like I said above, YAML (http://www.yaml.org) seems like a decent alternative for data transfer, .ini files, etc.

Is is a decent substitution for XML as it's very human readable, but...

Minh,

Do you actually need separate columns or can the data look like this...

Product       ProductChoices

----------------  -------------------------------------------------------------------

671703420  '158779036X  1587790637  SM96 1889241075'

I dunno... I don't think the count method could be made to work with any great effeciency here.  At best, you'd end up with a triangular join...

Dunno, Hector... I hardly ever use DTS so I've never made the comparison.  Seems like you have, though.  I do have a couple of DTS jobs coming up in the future......

Yep...I see what you mean, Ryan... I was introduced to the CHAR/INT-.5 method a couple of days ago and (screwed up is what I did

Also, I wish I can find where to specify the delimeter when saving from Grid. So far i did not find one. It is certainly not in Tools->Options

You can only...

DC... thanks for the great article.  Like many have said, it has sparked a bit of a controversy both pro and con.  It's articles (and the related responses, inflamatory or...

The "real" SQL Server requires that it be installed on a Windows SERVER.  The only edition you can install on a non-Windows Server is the "Developers Edition" (same as Enterprise...

I don't do much with DTS packages but I believe it will give you some indication as to which job step failed.

Probably not the answer you were looking for, but we make our own... most of it is just custom scripting.

Brenda,

Sorry for the delay... it's a tough question and deserves a good answer.  Undoubtably, you've had a thousand people tell you that this can't or shouldn't be done in SQL. ...

In this case, I think (small modification of) Paul's solution is going to be the fastest if there is an index on the FromDate column... just remove the "=" sign...

Sorry for the delay ... did you figure it out or do you still need some help on this...