Yes Jeff, it means.

The way we use (no, I wish we use, some parts are implemented in some freaky ways):

1) Create VIEW in all tarteted databases with set of fields...

How bloody familiar!

They believe that the best way to isolate data to be displayed to different customers is to have those data in separate...

I was just thinking - if such guy like Jeff cannot find the solution it must be something really stupid.

See - I was right!

Did you try to be dummy?

-s"  "

Enter TAB between quotes using Notepad.

Somewhere in previous life I read that command prompt is a text editor, so it may work.

I never saw a statement complex enough to make optimiser busy compiling it for more than 1 second.

It's clearly not the reason.

And Joke + follow-ups = ooopsss....

I wish I knew by myself.

So many times my jokes appeared in fact not jokes at all...

> Given that Excel and SQL Server are used by millions of people (I would think), I assume that somebody must have wanted to do this before and would therefore have...

Out For Justice, your statement is clearly false.

My 3 data items have to be different fields, they have different meanings and are only related by formulae.  If for example, you wanted...

I don't see any issue here. BULK INSERT from files like you described work in my system for almost 2 years, no problems with missing data in last column.

You must...

The only thing is certain here:

this must NOT be done in SQL Server.

There is nothing about datasets, nothing about data at all. It's all about reading and...

AVB, there are no miracles. You are not telling something. Or you are missing something. In our case it's the same.

You definetely have mess with datatypes, because in 1st example...

One thing is clear enough:

you cannot compare apples to oranges.

If you compare some values then they all are either apples or oranges.

According to Relational Data model all apples must be...

If you want an answer - take it.

Yes, you can.

Is it a good or bad idea - don't know.

Is it a good idea to buld a house using only axe?