Yes, Except seems like the hardest of the join operators for the query engine. Wouldn't the two-way compare

SELECT * FROM

(

SELECT * FROM Staging.dbo.WIDGET

EXCEPT

SELECT * FROM Production.dbo.WIDGET

...

BIDS does not run in VS 2010. You need to use VS 2008.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173767.aspx

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 does not support Business Intelligence Development Studio Integration Services, Report Services and Analysis Services...

The short answer is 'with a recursive CTE.' It's an interesting question, though, and I may work up an answer for you this weekend.

Do you can about weekends and holidays,...

(edited because I failed to constrain by company code the first time)

Here, try this. Just saying, this would have been easier for me if you'd done the bit about creating...

You may end up with one non-NULL item code. Your query expression with TOP gets (logically) evaluated before the join. You can fix it with a CROSS APPLY -- or...

Hey, remember when COM+/Component Services had a code name, it was Viper. And Microsoft's reusing Denali, which is why it seems so familiar (I was a support engineer for Visual...

"I have my eyes on Denali."

Clever. We'll have to start parsing what Microsoftees say more closely.

I believe that SQL...

Start here

You can use nested sets to simplify any hierarchy. Kamfonas' site should get you going -- the first thing to do is to change your parent/child model to a...

Blank NULL? Or blank zero characters? You can certainly use ISNULL, but if you care about performance more than simplicity, go for the union.

SELECT *

FROM TableA TA, TableB TB...

Really well constructed. My growing panic was nearly tangible.

I had been going to respond to this...

Thanks, Gail. You saved me a lot of time 😉

Well, exactly. I wouldn't compare this to subqueries, I'd compare it to using top and a sort. Is it faster than that? I'd expect them to be about the same...

And tell us, so we can vote against...