Writing articles ain't that difficult. Look at me. Just over 400 points and I have one published and another accepted/awaiting publication.

The trick is to find something that you've...

WayneS (4/27/2012)

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dwain.c (4/27/2012)

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Alert! To any of you really serious T-SQL folk out there, drinking at this water cooler, that want a real challenge.

Check out this thread: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1290424-392-1.aspx

Maybe I've overcomplicated...

Jeff Moden (4/29/2012)

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dwain.c (4/26/2012)

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You gotta love the recursive CTE version of this solution, even though it doesn't perform as well as the tally table version.

CREATE TABLE #t (strings VARCHAR(100));

-- Count...

Sorry for not getting back sooner. It's not because I was struggling with the new approach. The weekend had other things in store for me though. 🙂

So let's...

idyana (4/28/2012)

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Kindest dwain.c,

Whatever people said about your solutions, I dont care. For me, you are the best. You have helped me. they do not help but criticize only

For me, you're...

Jeff Moden (4/27/2012)

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Heh... you say that as if there should be something to be ashamed about. "Set-based" doesn't mean "all in...

I would like to postulate a theory on this topic and I'd be interested to have someone prove me wrong.

Dwain's Theory:

Given sufficiency of data and time, any deterministic results set...

Greg - I definitely see your point and mostly I agree.

I'm just saying don't try initially to build for the universe of possibilities until you've fully explored the galaxy.

Sorry. ...

I would say there are certainly cases where loops are unavoidable.

I just ran into a case on this thread, where a CURSOR may be needed to solve some of the...

Alert! To any of you really serious T-SQL folk out there, drinking at this water cooler, that want a real challenge.

Check out this thread: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1290424-392-1.aspx

Maybe I've overcomplicated it or...

No CURSOR. No Loop. I was able to deliver to my mantra!

Couldn't do it in a single statement though.

-- Give everyone their first choice unless the program doesn't...

Neither do I ... Hehe

I think it might be doable with a loop that doesn't involve a CURSOR. Working on that but it may take awhile.

Let me try to better explain my...

Revenant (4/26/2012)

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dwain.c (4/26/2012)

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Jeff Moden (4/26/2012)

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Nope... just quote the thread by hitting...

I see the issue now. Correcting it though... that's an entirely different matter.

It is counting 1925 against the quota for the course he was eliminated from, thus excluding 2980...