Maria, thanks for posting your code.

The cursor based solution works well and reliably, but could become too slow when the table becomes really large. Cursor based solutions don't scale well,...

Bob Hovious 24601 (9/28/2009)

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I guess my question is: If you see an answer that you think misses the mark, why you don't just go ahead and answer it as...

Steve, the first link seems to be broken: http://concentratedtech.com/content/index.php/2008/06/18/sql-server-2008-rc0-powershell-long/ gives a 404 page.

For what the second link is concerned, I think this comment says it all:

Tone? Sorry, Microsoft, but...

Let me disagree with you: it's always a...

You could use the famous "quirky update" method for running totals:

DECLARE @RunningTotal INT

IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#t') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE #t

CREATE TABLE #t (

Serial INT IDENTITY,

TransactionNo INT,

Amnt INT,

RunningTotal INT

)

CREATE CLUSTERED...

I would say LEFT JOIN, but it depends on the volumes and indexes of the tables you are joining.

With lookups, you issue one query for each row, with the join...

This should do the trick:

;WITH Months (firstDayOfMonth)

AS (

SELECT TOP 12

CAST(

CAST(YEAR(GETDATE()) AS char(4)) +

RIGHT('0' + CAST(ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY object_id) AS varchar(2)),2) +

'01'

AS datetime)

FROM master.sys.all_columns

)

SELECT firstDayOfMonth

FROM Months

WHERE MONTH(firstDayOfMonth) >=...

Here it depends on how many rows you will have to perform the running count on, in a large table scenario.

If you only are interested in finding the top n...

I forgot to mention that the "quirky update" method for running totals is explained very clearly in an article by SQL Server MVP Jeff Moden, that currently is under rewrite....

There are at least two methods: triangular join and "quirky update".

I suggest you take the quirky update if the number of rows involved is big, especially if there is already...

Silverfox (9/23/2009)

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I took a look at this particular thread. I do agree with you, Silverfox, and I am usually one tht tries very hard in this regard....

Is it me, or the forums are receiving less questions than before?

I often use the "Active Threads" link, but I get much less forums a day than I was getting...

If he insists killing processes without knowing what they do, let him do it.

He already has decided to increase lock timeout and kill process, so, why bother?

Jeff Moden always says it best!:-)

It would be too long to explain in a forum question: I suggest you look for articles around.

http://www.google.com/search?q=set+based+code

Basically, the main concept here is that set based code leaves the task...