ChrisM

the problem simply stated is to find a phrase in the db and return it's weight. 

If the phrase I'm looking for contains extra words, is missing words or both, it makes...

Chris, thanks for your response.  I initial did a similar thing, then came up with this...

 declare @w0 varchar(32)

 declare @w1 varchar(32)

 declare @w2 varchar(32)

 declare @w3 varchar(32) 

 declare @w4 varchar(32)

 declare...

Chris, thanks for your response.  I initial did a similar thing, then came up with this...

 declare @w0 varchar(32)

 declare @w1 varchar(32)

 declare @w2 varchar(32)

 declare @w3 varchar(32) 

 declare @w4 varchar(32)

 declare...

Hey thanks...your example below works great.

select distinct a1 , a2 from a

join (select distinct b1 , b2 from b ) as B

on B.b1 = A.a1

and b.b2 = A.a2

join (select distinct...

If an inner join has no rows won't the entire query fail?

Right, we're trying to find the common elements.  In an intersection it's always possible the one or more tables won't match anything in the other tables.  If that's the case...