The thing about parallellism is that we have no control over if and when it gets used.

It seems like the MAX() didn't get any and the MIN() got some. Perhaps...

You're most likely getting a negative value for the 3rd parameter (length of string) in your substring.

select substring('aaabbb', 1, -1)

Server: Msg 536, Level 16, State 3, Line 1

Invalid length parameter...

The two main places is the SQL Server log and Windows Event log.

It's likely that in case of error that causes the server to stop, you can find the time...

You may have to adjust or rethink your processing, since what you're trying to do won't work inside the same batch.

-- snip from BOL paragraph Batches ---

A table cannot be altered...

Swap how? By looking, or permanently? (assume you mean 'swap columns' rather than 'rows')

-- just looking

select num2, num1 from numbers

-- permanent change

update numbers

set    num1 = num2,

       num2...

This seems indeed to be a rare bird. I've never heard about it before, and Dr. Google only came up with one single thread about the same issue with MSDE....

You're welcome

Is there anything in particular you're wondering about?

As a starting point, you can go to BOL (Books On Line) and look up...

Darn, you beat me to the parsename method.

(just increasing my postcount)

/Kenneth

'GO' is the token to terminate the batch, so there is no way that you can have 'GO' inside a procedure.

When you complie the proc, the 'GO' will end the...

Can you post the complete actual command that calls xp_cmdshell, along with how you verify the returncode?

..and also the output from the command.

/Kenneth

Another way of doing it, without loops or identity.

It does however need a numbers table.

This is basically a technique that Itzik wrote about in SQL Server Mag June 2005 -...

Fwiw,

I found an old post of mine, just basically describing how transactions work..

Have a look at it and see if you can get your head around it =;o)

It's not entirely...

Hmmm.. well, endusers seldom knows what the meaning of 'neat' is...

Only thing I can think of straight up is to generate the file in...

If you can't touch the existing data, you may scrub it while retrieving.

You can use a UDF to strip out CR/LF chars, something like below.

create function dbo.stripCRLF(@s as...

Well, never seen that requested before.

AFAIK, it can't be done directly in the query. Column headers are returned on a single line.

Perhaps do...