Tom,
I may be corrected (don't have SQL-Server here to check) but my recollection is that remote views you can assign a parameter (where clause) that gives an empty result. But SPT does NOT return an empty cursor. Instead it returns no cursor at all. I do know we used parameterized remote views whenever we wanted an empty cursor

Not much help...

>What is the equivalent in SQL-server SQL pass-through of NODATA ? I.e how can I force an empty cursor -- efficiently? (This must be a dumb question!)