Lowell (1/10/2012)

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what app did you use to make the "tearing" with the drop shadow? I like the looks of that and will want to use it for some future...

So glad you asked:

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/paul_white/archive/2011/06/22/undocumented-query-plans-equality-comparisons.aspx

Small comfort, but it will be possible in SQL Server 2012, using the new TRY_CONVERT function:

...returns NULL.

Isn't it as simple as:

SELECT

*

FROM #Students AS s

WHERE

s.[Year] = 2009

AND NOT EXISTS

(

...

Not within a function, no. Functions do not allow TRY...CATCH blocks, so the normal trick of converting to untyped XML inside such a block cannot be used. Consider...

They're in the keys folder, and also have a different icon in the columns folder.

This is how to present sample data:

DECLARE @data TABLE

(

Id integer NOT NULL,

ColName ...

Personal preference to some extent, but I prefer this:

MERGE domCategory AS target

USING staging.dbo.Category AS source ON

target.CategoryID = source.CategoryID

WHEN MATCHED

AND NOT EXISTS...

What's the definition of the destination table?

In addition to Patrick's example, take a look at the other questions...

winston Smith (1/10/2012)

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Its not a system that i had any input in the design for. Its in existance many years before I got to work on it. Im writing packages...

The design, implementation, and performance mostly 😀

It's often DATEFORMAT...

Almost usable, perhaps, at a stretch. 2008 was a big step back...

Well exactly. The primary motivation for Adam writing WIA was the awfulness that is Activity Monitor.