Sorry G, I must have misunderstood. Thought you meant earlier that the MS guys...

David Webb (4/29/2009)

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Yes. I saw it 5 times during the next two weeks and saw some new detail I had missed on the times before. Bought the soundtrack...

Jan Van der Eecken (4/29/2009)

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Jeff Moden (4/28/2009)

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Sergiy (4/28/2009)

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I believe this is the method that doesn't suck so...

Jeff Moden (4/28/2009)

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Heh... I just knew...

The QoTD did not mention which version of SQL it was referring to. That's why further up I said that the link given in the explanation mentions SQL2000, and that...

Piyush,

I beg to differ. Try this:

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[usfn_GetDateTime] ( )

RETURNS datetime

AS

BEGIN

RETURN GETDATE ( )

END

GO

SELECT [dbo].[usfn_GetDateTime]()

Although GETDATE() is clearly non-deterministic this compiles properly and the SELECT statement returns...

Douglas Duncan (4/11/2009)

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The correct answer is no, and I would imagine that the people in power will correct the issue soon. In addition to the explanation given in the answer,...

... My dad taught at a university and was given by someone (I never knew who) a 4-foot section of a four-by-four with one end shaped into the handle of...

Looking at the original sample the OP posted Chris may be right when he says

But then,...

I agree with Chris. But now, in the presence of NULLs in any of the columns, how can simultaneous horizontal and vertical comparisons work without introducing some artificial replacement values...

And by the way, since this seems to be just a sample of data to be sorted with 3 columns and five rows, have you considered what would happen to...

Jsanborn, why don't you go back to the basics and try to come up with a MANUAL algorithm that comes up with the desired result in ALL cases? And then...

You must be careful with...

Another thing you should definitely do is download a copy of SQL Server Express as well as SQL Server Books Online (highly commended, the most valuable resource of information on...

Then again, why not? Windows NT was built with a Hardware Abstraction Layer underneath it, so all you need is a HAL that runs on Solaris machines or whatever plus...