>BTW Cast and Convert indeed changes the type because you ask it to do exactly that.
>Cetin

I think I just posted it wrongly. I didn't forget the ) in my original code. The first Insert worked, but the second gave an error. So, I concluded that CAST indeed changed @counter variable type from int to char. But that's strange, I would assume the change of the resulting expression and not of the actual variable.

Or are you saying I probably indeed forgot the ) in the second insert command?

I'll re-check either later today or next days.

UPDATE. I think I indeed just forgot the ) in both insert statements. Strange that the first worked, though.