It seems when looking in BOL that variables isn't supported.

/Kenneth

It may also be set by the connecting client, so to be on the safe side, it's best to get into the habit of always using single quotes when denoting...

The sp_OAxx procs are for using/accessing COM objects from within SQL Server. However... don't go there.

xp_cmdshell is essentially a DOS prompt for use from Transact SQL. Whatever you can...

There is no MAX statement within your subquery, so I assume that's why you get more than one serialno for each day...

/Kenneth

Are the 'unrelated' procs that throws these errors compiled with the correct settings for ARITHABORT and QUOTED_IDENTIFIER..?

As you say, these settings stick to the proc at compile time, it doesn't matter...

Whenever a poster omits 'important' details about their problems and purposes with their queries (like 'this is a derived de-normalized table for reporting purposes only drawn from another system'), sidetracks...

I believe that the best solution to any given problem is to use the correct tool for said problem. There are (as of yet) no single product/system that's suitable for solving every possible...

I was just kidding anyway

..so.. #10k procs huh..?

..am not going to ask 'why so many'...

..though,...

Normalization is done to ensure consistency and prevent your data from behaving unexpectedly, and possibly even show you things that doesn't even exist. (yes, it's possible if you're creative enough)...

Not necessarily (imo)

It might lead you to accept the 80-90% as 'good enough', which it isn't.

Or worse, it might lead you (or someone...

Ah, okies - tnx

So, that means 500k rows for each month, totalling 6 million rows for a full year. That alone is imo not...

well.. what the question really was about was how to get the 4 last charachters (that just happened to mean 'year') from a...

Perhaps it's just me being silly, but... how many are 5 lakh ...?

/Kenneth

Won't work. As the input 'date' is '1/2005', which isn't a complete date, you can't do any datefunctions on such a string...

/Kenneth

Chris, I stand corrected. Apparently it isn't quite as bad as I first thought when wrapping the delete in rowcount. There are still TAB X locks taken, but they're pretty...