>>Hi,
>>
>>The only way I found that I can assign a value selected in SQL Select to a variable as following:
>>
>>

>>select @MyVar = (select MyColumn1 from MyTable where MyColumn2 = 'SomeValue')
>>

>>
>>Is the above the only way to do it? Or there is a better approach? TIA.
>
>Another way is
>

>select @MyVar = MyColumn1 from myTable

>
>The difference between these two methods is that the first will always change the @MyVar variable. In the second case, if the select statement does not produce rows, the original value of @MyVar will not change.


Can you think of why the following SLQ Select (selecting from an XML string):

SELECT @Var1 = [Fld FldName].value('.','varchar(20)'),  [Fld FldName].value('@Name','varchar(20)') AS FldName
  FROM @myxml.nodes('/TABLENAME/Fld') Fld([Fld FldName]) where [Fld FldName].value('@Name','varchar(20)')='Field1'

gives error:

A SELECT statement that assigns a value to a variable must not be combined with data-retrieval operations.