I wanted to run a query from SQL Express against Excel, and I found this:

As I was working on a database yesterday I came across a curious sight, multiple columns defined as numeric(7,0), numeric(9,0), and so on. It seemed like someone was trying to provide the database with the most specific definition possible for a number of different pieces of data. Having never run into this particular practice, I immediately started searching for a reason. Was it smaller? faster? better?

One of the best ways to improve your skills is by helping other people in forums and newsgroups. I was doing just that tonight and I stumbled on this piece of code here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3622685/transfer-column-data-from-one-database-to-another

With this blog post I am hoping to start a new series of blogs devoted to the interesting T-SQL problems I encounter in forums during the week.

The idea of this blog series came to me on Wednesday night when I thought I solved a complex problem...

First Problem

The first problem, I'd like to discuss, is found in this MSDN thread:

Given this table

Today on the lazy DBA we're going to talk about why Gandalf couldn’t open the door to the mines of Moria. OK, we're not going to talk about Gandalf or even Trolls. Although some of us might work with a few Trolls. We are going to talk about Wizards without pointy hats.