My code now takes the form:

ALTER PROCEDURE Populations_1991_onwards

AS

if exists(select 1 from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.tables where table_name = 'Populations_PREP') DROP TABLE Populations_PREP;

-- Create table with correctly defined fields

CREATE TABLE [Populations_PREP] (

[Key_m] [int]...

Fair point,

I have updated the original post. Don't worry I think that I have nearly fixed all the problems.

There was some duff data in the table. Sorry about that.

I'm nearly there with the following:

ALTER PROCEDURE Populations_1991_onwards

AS

--EXEC Populations_1991_onwards

if exists(select 1 from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.tables where table_name = 'Populations_PREP') DROP TABLE Populations_PREP;

CREATE TABLE [Populations_PREP] (

[Key_m] [int] IDENTITY (1, 1) NOT FOR...

I've edited my post. Thanks.

That has helped me find the problem. Thanks.

ALTER PROCEDURE Populations_1991_onwards

AS

CREATE TABLE [Table_name] (

[Key_m] [int] IDENTITY (1, 1) NOT FOR REPLICATION NOT NULL ,

[GeographicCode] [varchar] (10) COLLATE Latin1_General_CI_AS NULL ,

[Year_census_estimate] [int] NULL ,

[Sex] [int] NULL ,

[Age_start]...

The error that I get when I try to manually update the table is:

'Table_name' table

- Unable to modify table.

ODBC error: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Error converting data type...

,'2006','2007')

.... what is that bit for?

Mark Green (4/28/2008)

---

I don't need to determine if this is a one or two month string. They are all two digits to represent a month. Would it be...

They are detailed above.

It doesn't seem to recognise the format that I am working with (as detailed above).

I don't need to determine if this is a one or two month string. They are all two digits to represent a month. Would it be better to...

With what you have just written here, if I select the region as well as the SM figure, for each case. I could then do an inner join to...

That is very similar to what I started with. I'll go back to your complex code then.