Oddly, my editor recognizes that alias for ConvertTo-EncodedSQLName, but I get cmdlet or function not found, when I try to use it outside of the here-string.
Still getting the same...

Found the solution here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30769809/powershell-group-by-multiple-properties
Clunky...

Don't know why this was SO hard to find...
FYI: I understand there is an Enum function? command? in PoSh V5.

Add-Type -TypeDefinition @"
 // very simple enum type

Thank you all for having a go at this.

I don't see any  realistic way to get around this in a timely manner, and can't really justify spending anymore...

Not easily with a real-world example, I'm afraid.

I know.:crying: BIGINT can handle the 56 case. But we have 237 groups in on province.

Let me rephrase: my users have created various groupings of cities...

Ah sorry. Yes, SQL 2008

I'm not really sure that SQL server is going to be the right answer for this. I assume that you can use an...

Yep.

Mine too. Here's the final version. I didn't mention before, we also have phrases and synonyms of phrases.
Managed to get rid of the cross apply, which makes me considerably...

Sorry, was -- and am  -- out to lunch :Whistling:

Precisely!

But thinking on it over food, I may have been making this harder than it need...

See also: https://www.reddit.com/r/PowerShell/comments/4eylez/converting_sql_data_types_to_system_data_types/
Which nicely wraps things up!

Solution: need to get the column info from the DataSet.Tables object.

$Data = $objDB.ExecuteWithResults($Query)
# This gets the columns in order
$Data.tables[0].columns | sort -Property ordinal | select...

In short,
- the guy who modeled this insisted on doing it (t)his way. We let him. He doesn't work here anymore.
- I'm trying to get the...