I (almost) always do such aggregation in the client code, on the theory that it is actually a presentation issue and not a data one. That way, I can put things in whatever order I want. And besides, string manipulation in TSQL is very slow, anyway...

(BTW, I thought I read somewhere that xp_sendmail is deprecated in SQL Server 2005...)

Jeff Mason
Custom Apps, Inc.
[email protected]

I use the sp_send_cdosysmail procedure for sending emails. Not sure if that is deprecatedin sql server 2005. Need to check on that.

_________________________
- Vijay G
Strive for Perfection

agreed it's a dead horse. In reading what I typed vs what I can see how what I said can be misunderstood. Here is a restatement of what I am trying to say and said so poorly previously. I typed my previous posts assuming people would follow my thoughts without clearly stating them.

If you insert data into a table in one order, there is no guarantee it will be returned in the same order as the original poster appears to imply it will. To begin to do the logic that he is proposing he will need to add a identity (sequence for oracle types) to his data to insure it is returned in the same order inserted. This will have problems if multiple people are inserting at the same time. Then they will have to select the data with an order by on the identity value to get the data in the same order inserted. Then after that the poster can begin to apply the logic he is trying to apply. That is what I tried so poorly previously to point out.

Ok so forgive me if this is the totally wrong thread.

I am a network admin, and my experiance with SQL is installing it, maintaining and backing it up.

However, with very short notice I am having to learn/get help with the development side, or at least figure this issue out. In 8 hours of looking in all the wrong places of course I wont understand, what you guys can do.

Maybe what I need is simple.

I have a table name Custom 2 that look like so

cparent_alias custom_alias c_desicrpt col 4
000018 00565 0009 y
000018 00565 0008 n

Cparent and custom_alias each have a column full of number and so on.

I need to
1. create a new table for the new data
2. have a row within the table that combines "cparent_alias" and "custom_alias" and adds a period (.)

so I will have a table that has info like

00018.00565
00018.00565
and.. so on..

the other 2 columns are not needed.

Hopefully that made some kind of sense.

thanks in advance for any help.

This is a new question, start a new posting rather than tag onto an old one.
You have at least two choices, you can create the new table with the extra column of type (n)varchar(xxx) where x is the sum of the two columns you are concatenating, the table is called called Custom3.
Then INSERT using:
INSERT [Custom3] (cparent_alias, custom_alias, c_descript, col4, newColumn)
SELECT cparent_alias, custom_alias, c_descript, col4, cparent_alias + '.' + custom_alia;

This assumes the columns to be concatenated are a text type, if not then:
INSERT [Custom3] (cparent_alias, custom_alias, c_descript, col4, newColumn)
SELECT cparent_alias, custom_alias, c_descript, col4, CAST(cparent_alias AS nvarchar(50)) + '.' + CAST(custom_alia AS nvarchar(50));
Second option is to use a computed column where the data is computed by SQL Server on an ongoing basis. The advantage of this is that if you add a new row to the table the [newColumn] will have the correct value without you doing any extra work. Search Books On Line for COMPUTED COLUMN. Basically you declare newColumn AS cparent_alias + '.' + custom_alias [/code]

There are examples here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174979.aspx
In my opinion this whole request looks suspicious and I would question the wisdom in creating such a table aklthough one possibility would be to create a reporting table.


--

Joe (Microsoft MVP - XML)

Thanks Joe I will give it a shot.