Posted by Erland Sommarskog on 03/02/06 10:11

John Bokma (john@castleamber.com) writes:
> Erland Sommarskog <esquel@sommarskog.se> wrote:
>> John Bokma (john@castleamber.com) writes:
>>> "String or binary data would be truncated"
>>> Can MS SQL automatically do the truncation?
>>
>> Yes, if you issue the command SET ANSI_WARNINGS OFF.
>>
>> However, this is not really recommendable, as there are functionality
>> in SQL Server that requires ANSI_WARNINGS to be on.
>>
>> So you are better off by truncating the data yourself, for instance
>> with cast or convert. Or bounce thata over a variable. SQL Server does
>> not complain if you assign a variable with an overlong value.
>
> Thanks. Is there an easy way to insert and truncate the data via SQL in
> one go (or give something like an "It's ok to truncate hint"? I don't want
> to hardcode the max length of a text column (for example) in the program
> code.

See above about SET ANSI_WARNINGS. That's the hint you are looking for.
But also beware of the caveat.



--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downloads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/previousversions/books.mspx

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