David,

If Edward is correct and all you really want is to split the last name from the rest and we assume that the last name will appear after the last...

You have to convert @Count to VARCHAR or CHAR

Hi Midan,

Guess there might be a little problem with the language barrier thing... let me see if I can clear it up...

I believe your problem is that you want to...

Sukhoi,

I don't know if the little bit of "language barrier" between us is a problem or if I'm just misreading this... just want to make sure you aren't stepping onto...

Sukhoi,

Again, as in the post I answered for you previously, you need to do some conversions in the concatenization.  You have to CONVERT the date to VARCHAR or CHAR.  See...

Sukhoi,

It's funny how the error message is sometimes the opposite of what it should be...

Your problem is that the contents of one or more of your variables are numeric and...

You never mentioned how long it was taking for the update...

My experience for these two table type of single column update joins says you'll get about 4 million rows...

paolice,

Understood... I use "trial and error" a lot.  But you still haven't given me a clue as to how to use DataLength to determine the defined length of a column. ...

Thanks Antares... didn't know that. 

Hey paolice... how do you get DataLength to return the "defined length of your table's columns"?  Couldn't find a thing about that in BOL.

Errrr.... not sure just exactly what you're looking for so I offer this simple example on how to use a rowset from a stored procedure....

USE PUBS

GO

SELECT a.*

FROM OPENROWSET('MSDASQL',

               ...

Unless it was a text or ntext field, why would you use "DATALENGTH" over just "LEN" like some of the other replies used?   Just...

Demicog,

To remove the first character of a column, no matter what the character is, try this...

SELECT SubString(columname,2,999) --Sub the "999" with the max width of the column

To remove...

Here's a different way...

DECLARE @TestString VARCHAR(20)

DECLARE @DesiredLEN TINYINT

DECLARE @FillChar CHAR(1)

DECLARE @ResultString VARCHAR(255)

    SET @TestString = 'SomeString'

    SET @DesiredLEN = 25

    SET @FillChar   ='#' --So you can...

Heber!

I've been looking for a really simple way to "add a running number" to a SELECT for a long time!  Thank YOU!  That IS a really neat trick!

David,

Thank you for your kindness...

I've sent the code samples to 4 different people and have run it on the server at work.  In every case, your code with the <>...