Newbie Tears Cont'd: Disappearing Table

Table mytable exists and can be examined with


select * from mytable;

I wish to copy its contents to another table, pointing to mytable via a string with its name.

declare @name varchar(30); set @name = 'mytable';

exec('select * into #temp from ' + @name);

select * from #temp;

go



Msg 208, Level 16, State 0, Line 4

Invalid object name '#temp'.


Can someone please show the correct way?

Thanks a lot!



PS.. and perhaps point out a more efficient way of copying a table?