That's the same algorithm I posted further up the thread, although rather better explained.

The only assumption that is made is that you know a Monday, which in your case is...

Oh, what a can of worms date handling in SQL Server is!!

declare @known_monday varchar(10) = '1900-03-05'

set dateformat dmy

select cast(@known_monday as date) as Date05Mar1900

, cast(@known_monday as datetime) as DateTime05Mar1900

, cast(@known_monday as...

Fast and accurate, but dependent on the Language of the server.

This code relies only on knowning the date of some known monday (but is perhaps a little clunky)...

;withDayOne as (select...

Trying the test again, but with 2 windows both running your original script concurrently, then both updated 255 rows every time.

I can't explain this, but it must be something to...

That logic can be done in one single update (which doesn't require any particular locking strategies or isolation levels):

DECLARE @nextMergeID INT ;

DECLARE @customerID INT;

DECLARE @mergeDate DATETIME;

DECLARE @reset BIT;

UPDATE dbo.merge_standard_queue

SET...

In general, functions in SQL Server are a feature worth avoiding.

http://beyondrelational.com/quiz/sqlserver/tsql/2011/questions/Are-all-Scalar-User-Defined-Functions-UDF-always-bad.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sqlquiz+%28SQL+Server+Quiz%29.

The functions you suggest are probably the "best" or maybe "least-worst", in that they are scalar functions that access no...

This is simpler...

declare @mylist nvarchar(100);

set @mylist = 'A,B, C, D , 1, 2,345, EFG, H,';

declare @delim varchar(2)=',';

select LEN(@mylist) - LEN(replace(@mylist,@delim,''));

There is some significant overlap between this post and yours, so I did some performance testing.

On the combination of both the test data you supply, and the 8000 replications of...

You're right, my suggestion doesn't perform well.

It could be done better - here is a slightly improved version

;with spc (id, val, num, k) as (

select a.id, a.val, t.num, ROW_NUMBER() over...

declare @file1 varchar(max) set @file1 = 'file1.test'

declare @file2 varchar(max) set @file2 = 'file2.test'

declare @ret int

declare @sql nvarchar(max) set @sql = N'exec @ret = xp_cmdshell ' + char(39) + 'rename '...

Nice. Can't help thinking, though, that recursive CTEs are a solution looking for a problem.

That method works well for short strings, but longer strings will soon hit the maximum...

hmm.. you're right.

If you replace the relevant line with:

set @val = cast((@seed * 63 * power(2,@l)) as int) % 62

it will give a significantly better distribution of the final...

I've done some performance checks.

I expect the performance would be poor where there are many (millions of) consecutive rows to flatten, but the data I need to process is typically...

Thanks for the suggestion.

However, while that has one big advantage (in that it works), it has a problem for me (not SQL2000 compatible). Although that shouldn't matter on this forum,...

sp_MSForEachTable is an undocumented system stored procedure. Althought the official Microsoft documentation does not include any details on it, there is much information available on the 'net: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sql+server+sp_msforeachtable.

It runs...