I guess in Oracle 10G this feature is available.

For  8i you have to use something like

Select * from MyTable where MyField like '__r%' or MyField like  '__l%'

Try set operations like  the following if the column positions & type are same  in both the tables even if the column names are different.

select * from    table1  minus select...

have you tries text columns?.

Run sp_lock to see if the table/rows which you are trying to delete are being locked by any other user . You delete will wait until the other...

Thanks Allen,

Also I could see the SQL being executed by the session from the current activity in the Enterprrise manager by clicking on the session .

Does SQL server rollback...

Thanks for the replies.

This error is intermittent, not regular.

I checked sp_who2 and saw two sessions were blocke dby other sessions, but I could not find out the exact...