I think we're not on the same page with this "main query" idea.  All I'm saying is, the query I posted above takes about 40 seconds to run currently, by...

Here is the code from one of my UDFs.  Changes have been made to the table and database names to protect the innocent (and my job

Remi, I would have done that but the merge query is rather lengthy and I have to propogate this change into a LOT of of other UDFs.  (I must add,...

I understand what you mean about the table scans.  In some instances I am getting table scans, and in others I get index scans.  Never index seeks.  Frankly, I am...

Thanks, will do. 

I could do that but this doesn't have a front-end.  I'm just trying to organize all my data integration and cleanup and such into step-by-step queries (eventually the whole database...

Nice!

Might there be a way so that function could be called by an Access query (so any dufus could just double-click qry_Remove_Underscores and it runs)?

Excellent!  Either of your solutions seems to work but I do think the IIF will be a bit faster.  I tried the REPLACE() solution and it does work, although it...

lol

This was my feeling from the start but I wanted to confirm it with one of you seasoned pros.

Thanks a lot for reading over this mess of stuff. 

StmtText                                                                               

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SELECT * FROM vwBigTable where starttime > '4/4/05' AND stoptime < '7/6/05'

(1 row(s) affected)

StmtText

------------------------

  |--Compute Scalar(DEFINE: ([Expr1004]=If ([tblCorrections].[FileID]=NULL) then [tblOriginal].[Field1] else [tblCorrections].[Field1], [Expr1005]=If ([tblCorrections].[FileID]=NULL) then [tblOriginal].[StartTime]...

Well...sorry, what I was saying was I was only able to copy what I showed you.  The output text shows up as a set of records and I had to...

OK here's all I get out of it.  Sadly a lot of it gets cut off but you get the idea.  Again, names were changed where necessary.

SELECT * FROM vwBigTable...

Okay here's what I've got.  I've changed the table and field names to protect the innocent, so I hope this still makes sense.  The simple query query:

SELECT * FROM vwBigTable where...

I can't post that due to the sensitive nature of the data here but I can say you guys were correct that it is doing clustered index scans, so clearly...