'Thinking In Sets' is the important phrase.

Non-SQL developers tend to write sub-optimal SQL as a result of their general tendency towards row-by-row processing, something which SQL developers tend to avoid...

karthikeyan-444867 (8/24/2011)

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Procedural program - some series of computational steps to be carried to solve a problem.

Declare @id int

select @id = id from emp where eno = 5

can we say it...

Ninja's_RGR'us (8/22/2011)

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New "feature". Order bys are ignored in the views.

Nothing you can do except use order by from outside the view =>

Select Whatever From dbo.View ORDER BY...

Not 'as well' - just change the config file and leave the BIDS version alone.

Got a slight wind problem Jeff? 😀

As it's required only for a small proportion of results, you could try a UNION

select coalesce(a,b)

from ...

where coalesce(a,b) is not null

union

select [complex expression]

from ...

where coalesce(a,b) is null

John Mitchell-245523 (8/19/2011)

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I think it would be simpler if, instead of updating the config file, either you evaluate the variable using an expression, or you output a value at the...

Please provide more info. How much data, how frequently and why continuously? You make it sound like a migration, rather than something which needs to run over and over again....

I should have paid more attention - I didn't notice that you had only two columns. You've found a good solution - fingers crossed you don't ever get any more...

Brian Carlson (8/17/2011)

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I am reading a flat file that has additional rows I want to ignore. The additional rows are status rows and occur rarely and have no column delimeters....

dji (8/17/2011)

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Following some great advice on another post I made about importing flat files. I took the leap and started with SSIS packages, probably the best SQL decision I ever...

Save yourself from Excel hell and output to CSV instead. Then (apart from max row issues) it doesn't matter which version of Excel...

Maybe change your query to return 'true' (has data) or 'false' (no data) instead and build your precedence constraint accordingly.

spin (8/16/2011)

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my laughing gland has burst and i can see a long stint in intensive care ahead. 😛

i mean something like..

select * from openquery('select * from thisTable where date >=...

Is it Informix? You might do better in a Unix db forum ...