Thanks, this does help. I created a second table variable @tables that has the distinct table names

Iterating though that with a WHILE EXISTS( SELECT * from @tables)
SELECT top 1 @tbl = tbl from @tables
and then buidling on my @sqlscript with the Alter Table
and then iterating columns and adding the alter columns statments in a similar inner loop

delete from @tables where tbl like @tbl+'%'

I normally hate the idea of procedural thinking in tsql but this is easy to write and easy to tweak. Once I have the script I can pretty much solder it.

(did I mention I'm REALLY glad you're back <g> )


>Yup, something very similar to that.

>
>Now, once you have a set of the columns, you'd need to parse through them to generate a long script.
>
>Again, I'm more tempted to open up that table that holds the necessary columns through .NET. T-SQL isn't great at this sort of things.... however, you "could" use the T-SQL "for xml" capability. The following example is one I use to show people how to take a bunch of rows and generate a single comma-separated string. This might or might not apply to what you're doing.....but here's an example...
>
>

>declare @ShipMethodIDList nvarchar(1000) 
>
>set @ShipMethodIDList = 
>    stuff (  (  select distinct ',[' +  
>            cast(ShipMethodID as varchar(100))  + ']'  
>               from Purchasing.ShipMethod
>                     for xml path('') ), 1, 1, '')
>

>
>Though again, I'd be more tempted to write a short .NET script (or obviously, a fox script as well)
>
>Again, thinking out loud, but hopefully this helps a bit.