Is there a way, other than concatenatin a string and excuting it to build dynamic SQL? For example, could I pass in column names or table names as a parameter and execute:

declare @tablename varchar(50)
declare @colname varchar(20)

select @colname from @tablename

Can you be a little more clear, I understand your example but not your question. Could you explain it a little more.

Jaime E. Maccou

i want to use variables as a column or table name instead of hardcoding. I don't want to have to build a sql string like:

'select * from '' + @tablename + ''

then doing an sp_executesql

I don't think so, you don't have to use sp_executeSql though, you can just build your @sql string and then .

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Joe (Microsoft MVP - XML)

Thanks for the input guys!

   It is not possible to do what I want, I have tested. Perhaps in the new release of SQL Server.
   The reason I am trying to avoid building a string then executing (as a statement or stored procedure), is because SQL server cannot compile and optimize the code. Trying to get the best perfomance. If I find any other solution, I will be happy to share.

Thanks again,

Jim