The tables and columns really are there - they have data in them and they appear in syscolumns and sysobjects.

When I run the INFORMATION_SCHEMA query myself, I don't see these...

Full permissions - even as far as being an admin on the box itself. I'd be very surprised if this were the cause though I am no expert on SQL...

I learned the little I know about this from looking at the scripts created by Redgate SQL Compare. I think this is one of the quicker ways to learn -...

You might find this is a bit slow if you have lots of data. Generally I prefer to see the data imported into varchar columns into a raw table and...

Good interview, and I think the marketing angle Red Gate has chosen makes a lot of sense. I really like the SQL Compare and SQL Data Compare products (with a couple...

Just to add a developer's (and supporter's) tuppence:

A few triggers are ok if they are really what you need - the examples given so far are good. I would underline...

If I understand it correctly, you want to retrieve certain records from the second flat file and append them to the table populated from the first file.

I would:

• Build a table...

Interesting, but the ini file problem (limited amount of data that can be held) can be got around (IME) by using a number of different sections in the ini file,...

I don't think the CLR is particularly necessary for SQL Server, but it's nothing to be afraid of, either. Joe seems to think that programmers do whatever they want to...

Many, many thanks for all these replies. I've struggled on with increasingly nasty loops of dynamic SQL, learning some good stuff along the way and generally having fun, but haven't...

I think that would work if there where a record for each day of the event in the table - but there isn't. For instance, at one extreme, if there...

You can do the file system stuff with FileSystemObjects rather than your text file:

Dim objFso

Set objFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Then see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/script56/html/fsoorifilesystemobject.asp for all the nice things you can do.

The...

I've been interested to read the musings, as I always wondered what it was about open source that got people so excited. Little of value is ever really given away,...

A simple thing that has tripped me up a few times is that both the job and the schedule need to be enabled to run. These are on 2 separate...

What you really want to do is go back in time with a wet kipper and slap the person who didn't put these settings into a central location. Given that...