All the options work if done properly, you might get better help if you share the errors you get or the problems you face.

Always

This can help you find unicode characters that you might not want. It will return the string and the characters, you just need to change the test table to your...

You might have characters that are not NCHAR(65533).

You need to identify the characters that don't belong to your dataset.

CREATE TABLE #CharsTest(

nstring nvarchar(100));

INSERT INTO #CharsTest

VALUES

...

A...

You can use BULK INSERT to import from a csv or (any flat file).

You can also use OPENROWSET to query the Excel file as a table and insert the rows...

Emil B (9/11/2015)

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I was reading https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms180169%28v=sql.110%29.aspx

and was trying to find out what is the default behavior but it only says that:

If FORWARD_ONLY is specified without the STATIC, KEYSET, or...

Or at Jeff's series on cross tabs and pivots: Part 1[/url] & Part 2[/url].

Personally, I try it to keep it simple by using the concatenation method explained in here: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/comma+separated+list/71700/

And...

Thank you for the reference on the article, but this problem doesn't seem to need a loop. A single update can do the job.

CREATE TABLE Table1(

EntryID...

I would use the Import/Export wizard that will create an SSIS package that you can save for future executions or dismiss after running it once.

It allows you to use queries...

That's easy, just add a where clause.

Something like this?

--UPDATE t SET ID_NumofAttach = x.ID_NumofAttach

select *

from #temp t

CROSS APPLY (

SELECT SUM( CAST( i.ID_AttachLvl AS int)) ID_NumofAttach

FROM #temp i

...

Your query will only return rows where the region starts by null, which is different from a NULL value.

To compare NULL values, you need to use IS NULL or IS...

STATIC cursors create a copy of the data to keep it the way it was at the creation of the cursor. If not used, the cursor will continue to read...

Here are 2 (untested) options:

WITH CTE AS(

SELECT

V.VEND_ID

,...