This is resolved. The account running the SQL Agent service was a local account while the account set in the subscription for the replication agents was a domain account. (The...

The random occurrence of nulls makes that not work. It's not common, but it's possible to have half the columns in a row be null.

If there is a discrepancy between your test data and the test data supplied by both Mr Magoo and Mr Young, I would like to know.

The 2nd revision of the...

Sorry, too many meetings this week. I did test an algorithm posted a couple days ago. I opened it and executed it without touching any of it but it was...

With the time spans as close together as they were, I thought that might be...

Maybe this example will be clearer. Suppose you are doing an experiment with rats and mazes. You have a maze that a rat can find a single direct route through....

I agree. I think an application solution would be best. It looks like any possible SQL solution is going to be very cumbersome. Thanks all.

I also think Christian's solution looks promising. It will be tomorrow afternoon before I can dig back into this.

Bob is also correct. The data in the table are numbers with...

>>No, it is the same as the 3, null, 9, situation, mathematically. A later value in a later column is higher than an earlier value in an earlier column.<<

It's not...

Sorry for the delay. I'm between meetings. And no, I'm not the cursor evangelist.

(Yes! My intellect is vastly superior to all the rest of you on this forum. That's why...

(Working on it, Bob H.)

You people really seem to hate hard questions. There isn't a single requirement that has "changed".

- It's a table of numbers that increment from left to right in every...

... and I don't know who's asking for strings. I never said anything about strings.

The last sample I posted was not at all equivalent to that other "3, null, 9" case. (If that is what was being referred to.) In that case, sorting the...

ID Col1 Col2 Col3 Col4 Col5 Col6 Col7 ...