okay Mike - 'fess up - how many days did it take you to get that score - also, Mike is a very common name - I could be the...

"Buy a novel, get online access, and while away some time at work, "flipping" through it"....disagree with you on this - people who buy novels do so because they still...

Here's the same thing with '106'..

declare @date datetime
set @date = '16/Aug/2004 1:05:00 PM'
select convert(varchar, @date, 106) as formattedDate

Result
16 Aug 2004

Aah - the smoke still hasn't cleared from the 10 (or so) triggers that I just created and fired...I'm crushed by the fact that I'm resorting to this because of...

Read BOL on "group by"...here's an introduction which forms the basis of all groupings...

"When GROUP BY is specified, either each column in any non-aggregate expression in the select list should...

If it's ok to get the month as numeric, you can do this..

declare @date datetime
set @date = '16/Aug/2004 1:05:00 PM'
select convert(varchar, @date, 103) as formattedDate

Result
16/08/2004

..else you can play around...

& here's the w3 link in case you don't have it!

disagree - extremely easy to do if you're not in your dream-job...

How many people do you know who jump out of bed every morning...

I just found this t-sql programming book on the Net, but in the reviews one of them says that it's just a poor second to "BOL"...so guess that as...

Why only stored procedures ?!?!

I've always found the wrox publications great reads..

1)"SQL Server 2000 Programming" - Beginning - Robin Dewson

1)"SQL Server 2000 Programming" - Professional - Robert Vieira

There's quite nothing like being a minimalist is there ?!?!

- Rob - you're not doing anything wrong...best way to understand this is to follow this link

"A mentor" alone is worth all the other tools in the box...unfortunately they're really hard to come by...

Erik - something like this should help illustrate...

/***process A "if exists" - else process B***/
if exists(select....)
 begin
   process A
 end
else
 begin
...

This is a simplified version but should give you the necessary pointers...

create table #medPlan(empID char(5), Plan_Type char(2), First_Name varchar(20), MedicalPlan char(6), DentalPlan char(6))
insert into #medPlan values('00849', '10', 'remi', 'MEDPPO',...