quote:
I believe you are right, but I get equally lost in dealing with all the CASE statements and (so far, anyway) I have found the IF construct in SQL somewhat confusing since there's no requirement for THEN and ENDIF.Any suggestions in that regard--other than just lots of practice and trial-and-error?
I guess there is nothing like practice.
I for myself learn things efficiently when running once or twice against the wall and get a bleeding nose 
What about a good book on T-SQL like
'The Guru's Guide To Transact-SQL' by Ken Henderson ?
It contains lots of nice tricks
Frank
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Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]