> When I'm generating SQL I just maintain a list of columns and
> values (or a hash, or a pair of lists, or whatever is convenient
> for the language) and run it through a map/apply operation to
> generate the right syntax at the last minute.
I do that as well. Most recently I used that technique to clean up
this badly written .NET software someone wrote to update a SQL server
>from an Access database. Before I decided to clean it up, the
INSERT/UPDATE statements were hardcoded, one field name per line.
Twice. I was working on this when I discovered the silliness of the
syntax.
I think I didn't really notice it before because I was using halfway
decent languages to generate SQL instead of .NET, which I hate to
begin with. Hatred abounds.
--
Jeremy Stephens Computer Systems Analyst I School of Medicine
Department of Biostatistics Vanderbilt University
