IF your development machine has the 600+ Gig of free space to install a copy of your production Database, then create a 3rd Database instance on the test machine. ...

Do you have a budget? there are a variety of 3rd party tools to make your life easier. otherwise, you are looking at variations on brute force scripting...

What version of SS 2k5?  What are your system's attributes?  Do you have the minimum requirements to run?

Would it make sense to build a (static) comparison table with the first date of each month in one column, and the last date of each month in another column...

IF the number of worksheets in a workbook is stable, or at least the maximum number is stable,

IF you can guarantee that, for the same target table, the spreadsheet...

One more thought - since you are going to be doing this 'side by side'... IF you have enought disk space.  Rather than backup and then restore into new database...

1. ...

Lynn, I think you may be onto something. If ":rolleyes" would represent rounding, what icon would we use to express BR?

Rather than using an XML declaration, could you use an NVARCHAR to store the values initially? Then you could manipulate the content to satisfy the XML rules - yes...

care to share with us the code? That would make it easier to give you a coherent answer that would be useful to you. Not necessary to compare...

OK... this is really scary. S OC4 is a data exception error, usually from trying to assign a value of one type into a a variable of a different...

In a nutshell, if you want to use a stored procedure, change your paradigm. Work it as set-based, without loops.

Regarding the final output - i'm not clear on what...

When I did my time as an Internal Auditor for a Fortune 500 conglomerate, part of which was a Defense Contractor, I developed a formula to express to plant management...

so I guess i was on the right track... right shul, wrong balcony.

NEVER underestimate the power of peer pressure. The foghorn will certainly endear one with the neighbors.

I've never been to SLC, but from the folks I've talked to about it, very nice to visit. The surroundings are a little sparse to someone who's used to...