The "hammer..." thing was not a reference to you and Perl; it was about me having just that one CPU to... uh, "hammer" with my processing. (No, it's not an AMD-64 CPU! :-)

Perhaps a bit misplaced, in that the appropriate ending would have been, not "...then everything looks like a nail", but something like "...then you can just as well go on hammering [i.e, using it] the way you're used to".

Or, IOW: I could probably increase the system's *overall* efficiency by moving that transposing load to some other "tool" (CPU) -- but, at least in my hands, that one "hammer" (server CPU) that I have, is probably most efficiently used for "hammering" (running SQL in the DB), rather than trying to "screw" with it... :-) That's all I meant.

(As for the actual issue at hand, I'm doing this transposing in an SQL View, for the data to be loaded into the next table; this is just one step in our daily DW ETL processing. Millions and millions of rows, and the only "client"-type CPU I have unfettered access to is this NT4 desktop box with an "x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 6, GenuineIntel" processor [what's that, a Pentium II? Or an early Pentium III?] at ~860 Mhz, and 512 MB RAM... That's just not on; especially as I'm using it for other stuff at the same time -- including *important* stuff, like talking bull on zIWT! :-)