That setting also helps set up a way to avoid extra spaces in the address where null fields occur. 

Instead of adding spaces between the address parts outside of the...

I think that the article is on target.  I am no newbie and I have grown to love appreciate the combined code table (scenario 2).  I would say that this...

Another bad question.  I want my points! COL (crying out loud).

Ted has it right, you need an Oracle client.  However...

You might get by with the Oracle jdbc client which is very "thin" and do not require the full SQL*Net suite.  From within the...

I have to agree that there are a lot of variables not spelled out in the question.

The developers (of applications, and/or data models) should work with an applications-oriented DBA to define...

Hmmm... That is strange but true.  For something that refers to 'format', this option affects a lot more than the format of the SELECT statement. 

Did this option just grow...

I can just hear the page view count, and banner ad revenue, adding up.  Ka ching!

Kudos to the editors for finely tuning the QODs to balance between stupidly wrong or boringly correct,...

I vote that everyone gets points for this one or no one gets points.  There really should be some QA (quality assurance, not Query Analyzer) on these questions.

It would have...

This is a SQL Server bug that was supposed to have been fixed.

Through an MSDN news group posting, Steve Kass from Drew University pointed out the KB article and confirmed that...

The BOL seem pretty clear that linked servers have a four-part name, even if some parts are left blank for some providers.  In fact, you could argue that named instances...

Well... 

I tried using AS and that didn't change a thing.  Now that a few others have looked at this closely and don't see anything that I missed, I think that there...

Why should SQL Server care if I duplicate a column in the ORDER BY clause anyway?

Anyway, when aliases are used the error goes away, but the column value is duplicated anyway.

In...

Karsten's explanation sounds plausible and MOSTLY fits the situation.  Thanks.

However, when I use a temporary table, the values are computed properly.  Maybe that failure only appears in subqueries combined with GROUP BY.

In any...

I read a good explanation that COUNT(0) is a bit faster than COUNT(*), at least in Oracle and now I'm in the habit.  I think that it has to do with avoiding...

Why does this query return an error message.  It is clear to me that I have not repeated any columns !  Really I haven't