>>I have many many column that are char(36) imported from VFP that have been constructed to be cast as UID.
>>
>>For the most part they convert fine when I
>>
>>ALTER TABLE tblname
>>ALTER COLUMN colname Uniqueidentifier
>>GO
>>
>>However on the four or five that fail, all I get is
>>
>>Conversion failed when converting from a character string to uniqueidentifier.
>>
>>but there are half a million rows, so I don't know where my upsizer is failing to catch a badly formed GUID(36)
>>
>>Is there a tsql syntax that would be something like (forgive the bad pseudocode but you get the idea)
>>
>>SELECT success = CAST(cid as Uniqueidentifier) from ACCOUNT_CREDITS where success = false
>>
>>I need to know which row it chokes on. Could probably write an iteration but seems there must be a set based way to do this.
>>
>>TIA
>
>In SQL Server 2012 try a new TRY_CAST function. In prior versions there is nothing, unfortunately, to help.
Maybe that is what I was thinking of. May take a copy of this DB and put it into SQL 2012 just to figure out the problem as this is kind of a one-off.
Thanks.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
