Becuase SPACE and REPLICATE functions by default will return only 8000 characters...

Thanks and wishing you the same...

Sergejack, It is not possible to use a user defined variable in the ORDER BY Clause. However you can use system variables which are omitted by default...

<< SQL Server is clever enough not to even care about trying to order a single row result set. >> That is the point of my point and so is title as Fun :)...

Sergejack , I am aware of what you say. But the point of this blog post is about the behavior involved in ORDER BY Clause for invalid expressions. In some cases SQL Server omits the expression in some cases it evaluates. You can see it from the examples...

Note that SQL Server also supports this function. You can also use CASE Expression CASE WHEN expression1= expression2 then NULL ELSE expression1 END...

While COALESCE is in ANSI-standard, SQL Server supports it along with it's own function ISNULL()...

marc_jellinek@hotmail.com , that is a good point. But I have just pointed out that it is possible to create like that....

The SQL Server's equivalent is select right(PlayerFirstName+replicate('*',10)),10) RPadExample ,right(replicate('*',10))+PlayerFirstName,10) LPadExample From tblPlayers...

Hima, The last example shown in the post is for SQL Server. Oracle use LENGTH function...