Data Import Help

A little background first.

I have been taking Oracle classes to learn SQL structure and statements. I have also used that knowledge to start working with MySQL to create a pricing structure outside of our MS SQL database.

I am obviously still learning how to work with MS SQL Server 2005 and I am starting to see that there a A LOT of differences amongst the three databases.

My question begins here:

1. I want to import an excel spreadsheet to a temporary or actual table newprice (does not matter which, temp or actual). The spreadsheet contains two columns of data, A) item_id which holds all of our SKUs and B) item_prc_new which are my newly calculated and rounded prices. I am dealing with over 13000 SKUs that need to be updated and taking three days and 2 people to enter them one by one is not my cup of tea.

2. Once I have that table in the same database as our production item table (I may be forced to import it into another database named test on the same server instead of the production database as downtime is limited for that database) I want to use this statement to update those 13000 SKUs in the newprice table to the production item table using:

update item set item_prc_2 = test.newprice.item_prc_new where item.item_id in (SELECT item_id from test.newprice.item_id)

What I need to know is:

1. How to see what formatting is set on the item.item_id column so I can match it in test.newprice.item_id

2. The easiest or most efficient way to import that spreadsheet c:
ewprice.xls into the test database

Brooks C. Davis
IT AdministratorLogistics Manager SFTF LLC dba Ashley Furniture Homestores
DELL POWEREDGE 2850 Dual Core Xeon x3 = 1xDB 1xSQL 1xTS | DELL POWEREDGE 2950 Quad Core Xeon = 1xTS | SERVER 2003 | MS SQL 2005 | PERVASIVE EMBEDDED V.9