OK. I got it wrong, and now I know why I got it wrong. What I cannot understand is why it behaves like that in the first place! Surely if...

I have actually used APPLY (er, perhaps twice!) but not PIVOT. Just doesn't feature in the type of work I do.

A good grasp of the fundamentals is always important,...

Raul, Gaz, thanks both. I should have known better than to assume SQL would apply some intelligence to the expression analysis! 😉

Odd, though, in the table designer, how the 'Allow...

Just how can LEFT return a NULL when operating on a CHAR(8) NOT NULL value??

Good point, Ron.

My guess is that the DECLARE must be encountered by the parser before it encounters the variable being used, so that it already "knows" about it, even though...

What made this curious from my point of view is that normally you cannot have an empty code block in the various parts of an IF - the compiler throws...

I selected the syntax error option but not for the reason stated. The question states SQL 2005 and higher, but THROW evidently makes its appearance with SQL 2012, so is...

OK. I got it wrong because I tried to apply what I thought was sensible logic to the choice of the second value. Can anyone explain why SQL uses such...

We run a small (5 server) computer telephony platform that has to run 24/7. Finding any maintenance window is a major problem - we have several hundred client services, all...

I got it right but, apparently, for the wrong reason. I looked at ALTER Db SET PARTNER = .... and thought that was illegal syntax.

If it isn't, what is it...

The company I do most of my work for DO want the utopian 100% availability, but will never have the budget or staff to implement and run it. We operate...

I have been using Pocket Cloud by Wyse on my iPad for a while now to do remote desktop connection. It will work with both Windows RDP and VNC, which...

Got it right! Seems I was paying attention during the Always On session at SQLBits, after all!!

But from my perspective, the most serious disadvantage is that to take advantage of...

Thanks, Lowell. That sort of makes sense, but why, then, does not the SELECT ... FOR XML do that escaping in the first place? If that isn't guaranteed to be...

Hmmm. Duly checked out!! That's something of an eye-opener:w00t: Won't be doing that again.

Thanks for the pointer to a very interesting article.

Bob