Good question - I had never heard of the FORMATMESSAGE function before.

In the explanation, it says:

The correct asnwer is 399. Why? I have no clue, but this is how...

[Quote]why does   if '' = char(32) select 'Yes'   return Yes  ?[/Quote]

That's a result of how ANSI defines string comparisons.

If two strings are of unequal length, ANSI says that the shorter...

Jereme - In case of varchar, 2^31 - 1 bytes and 2^31 - 1 characters are equivalent. A varchar takes 1 byte for each character.

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Hugo Kornelis

Cory - Thanks for the link. I can only assume that the Books Online author messed up on that page. I've sent feedback about it to Microsoft.

Peter - There are...

Morten - you are incorrect. VARBINARY(MAX) is also maximized at 2 ^ 31 - 1 bytes.

Giles, Loren - since SQL Server 2000 doesn't support VARCHAR(MAX) and "error" was not one of the...

<pedantic>

The correct answer is, of course, not 2 ^ 31 but 2 ^ 31 - 1.

</pedantic>

Good question, but there's a glitch in the explanation of the answer.

It says: "In this case one value is NULL, and so the result is a 0 of the first...

Stephen is correct. The semicolon is a command seperator; GO is a batch seperator.

Though the semicolon is completely optional in SQL Server 2000, this changes in SQL Server 2005. In...

Hi Steve,

I'm not surprised. When you think about it, it makes sense.

The risk of releasing patches without extensive testing is high. Of course, nobody expects patches and hotfixes to get...

Hi Steve,

I've seen this one in someone's signature line in a newsgroup. I'd like to attribute him (or her), but I don't recall the name. Anyway, I was quite jealous...

Hi Adam,

Ah, yes, of course.

I was taught set theory in Dutch (of course). My error was in translating the English operators to Dutch - I confused JOIN and UNION. (I...

Hi all,

I realize it's an old QOD, but I need some help here figuring out why the proposed equivalency (c) is true.

Allow me to "steal" Troy's example, but modify and...

Hi Sergiy,

There's no need to. An INSTEAD OF UPDATE trigger will enver fire on an UPDATE statement that is executed in the context of the trigger. Cut and pastte the...

Hi Steve,

Showing my age, I'll say that for me, there can only be one: Tron. (The 1982 original, not the recent re-make).

Is it the best? No, probably not. But for...

Hi David,

Are you not confusing "I, Robot" (a very intriguing robot whodunnit, based on one of Asimov's many books in which he explores the weaknesses of his own three laws...