Made me question the way char's are handled in len() as we always use varchar, so thanks!

Nice question! Thanks.

Why re-post this article?

It does nothing to educate people about replacing cursors with efficient, set-based, code.

However, reading some of the excellent discussion after does

Having a graphic doesn't stop you trying the code - typing it in actually aids the learning process, as you are processing what you are typing, rather than just seeing...

Come on, give the guy a break - you can see that Null has been cropped off! Not another huge discussion on assumptions!

I am on the other side this...

Thought this had been beaten to death... Time to unsubscribe as well!

Maybe I've missed something, but I think at least 3 concrete suggestions have been given as how to alter the question...

So how about:

WITH Users(UserID, UserName) AS

(

SELECT TOP 1 intUserID,...

And with a tiny bit more care in the preparation of the question, there would have been a lot more people appreciating it.

JF1081 (3/4/2010)

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antony-688446 (3/3/2010)

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Agree that QOTD is supposed to be fun & educational, and not taken seriously, but should also be clear & unambiguous. After all, assumption is the Mother &...

Surely that is the point of QotD?? :hehe:

Agree that QOTD is supposed to be fun & educational, and not taken seriously, but should also be clear & unambiguous. After all, assumption is the Mother & Father of...

I am on the 'poor question' side of this debate. Yes, read the code, make assumptions, and you get the right answer (not convinced its worth 2 points, as it...

Excellent QotD. Grey matter exercise, rather than spot the illegal statement

Alternatively, replace all the date calc code with:

select @qdt=dateadd(m,-1,dateadd(d,datediff(d,'1 Jan 1900',getdate()),'1 Jan 1900')-datepart(d,getdate())+1)

This returns the first day of the previous month, 12:00 am, as does the given script.

An explanation of...

Feel cheated by this one, as the question should have been a 'Choose all that apply'. Making it multi-choice makes the answer obvious. This is really annoying when you have...