Bizare String Concatenation Issue - Explanation Needed

Hi all, can someone please explain why this is happening:
I execute the following:
DECLARE @.temp VARCHAR(500)
SET @.temp = ''
SELECT @.temp = @.temp + '[' + T.NAME + ']'
FROM MyTable T
SELECT @.temp
Say [MyTable] looks like this:
|NAME|
--
A
B
C
D
Here are the result from running the above code on two different SQL Server
2000 installations:
SQL Server 2000 #1
[D]
SQL Server 2000 #2
[A][B][C][D]
I want #2. Is there some database option that I'm missing or something? Any
help would be appreciated. Thanks.SELECT @.@.version from each server? Might be different builds.
For me:
DECLARE @.temp VARCHAR(500)
SET @.temp = ''
SELECT @.temp = @.temp + '[' + T.NAME + ']'
FROM master.dbo.sysdatabases T
SELECT @.temp
select @.@.version
SQL 2000, build 878 (Sp3a plus hotfixes):
[master][tempdb][model][msdb][pubs][Nort
hwind]
SQL 2005, IDW 13:
[master][tempdb][model][msdb][AdventureW
orksDW][AdventureWorks]
Regards
--
Mike Epprecht, Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Zurich, Switzerland
IM: mike@.epprecht.net
MVP Program: http://www.microsoft.com/mvp
Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/epprecht/
"Mike Treadway" <MikeTreadway@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:39B330F1-41D5-4A7F-BFE0-25998D07C492@.microsoft.com...
> Hi all, can someone please explain why this is happening:
> I execute the following:
> DECLARE @.temp VARCHAR(500)
> SET @.temp = ''
> SELECT @.temp = @.temp + '[' + T.NAME + ']'
> FROM MyTable T
> SELECT @.temp
>
> Say [MyTable] looks like this:
> |NAME|
> --
> A
> B
> C
> D
> Here are the result from running the above code on two different SQL
> Server
> 2000 installations:
> SQL Server 2000 #1
> [D]
> SQL Server 2000 #2
> [A][B][C][D]
> I want #2. Is there some database option that I'm missing or something?
> Any
> help would be appreciated. Thanks.|||Thanks Mike. I should have posted an update, but I found this:
http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...b;EN-US;q287515
What I posted here was a simple example of my issue, my actual query
contained a little more SQL and it was on a view instead of a table. Doing
the following resolved my issue:
SELECT @.temp = @.temp + '[' + T.NAME + ']'
FROM (SELECT * FROM MyTable) T
This caused the query optimizer to sort the results of the inner query
first, then apply the concatenations.
Thanks again for your response Mike.
"Mike Epprecht (SQL MVP)" wrote:

> SELECT @.@.version from each server? Might be different builds.
> For me:
> DECLARE @.temp VARCHAR(500)
> SET @.temp = ''
> SELECT @.temp = @.temp + '[' + T.NAME + ']'
> FROM master.dbo.sysdatabases T
> SELECT @.temp
> select @.@.version
> SQL 2000, build 878 (Sp3a plus hotfixes):
> [master][tempdb][model][msdb][pubs][Nort
hwind]
> SQL 2005, IDW 13:
> [master][tempdb][model][msdb][AdventureW
orksDW][AdventureWorks]
> Regards
> --
> Mike Epprecht, Microsoft SQL Server MVP
> Zurich, Switzerland
> IM: mike@.epprecht.net
> MVP Program: http://www.microsoft.com/mvp
> Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/epprecht/
> "Mike Treadway" <MikeTreadway@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:39B330F1-41D5-4A7F-BFE0-25998D07C492@.microsoft.com...
>
>