CheckSum in SQL2000

I want to use checksum function for ntext data field in a table. But this
function accepts only varchar. Is there a way i can find checksum for ntext
fields in SQL 2000.
Thanks!!!I think you can cast it to a varchar
ie checksum(cast(field1 as varchar(8000))|||If you absolutely need to use CHECKSUM on the ntext field and, depending on
the size of the ntext values you already have in the specific table, you
might be able to convert the ntext to nchar/nvarchar or char/varchar and
apply checksum afterwards:
create table ENTEXT
(ID int, txt ntext)
insert into ENTEXT
values (1, 'any value')
select CHECKSUM(convert(char(8000),txt))
, CHECKSUM(convert(nchar(4000),txt))
from ENTEXT
drop table ENTEXT
The only limit would be the number of characters you can house temporarily
(4000 for nchar/nvarchar or 8000 for char/varchar) during the conversion
"skg" wrote:

> I want to use checksum function for ntext data field in a table. But this
> function accepts only varchar. Is there a way i can find checksum for ntex
t
> fields in SQL 2000.
> Thanks!!!
>
>|||Thanks All!!!
Mostly my text fields are more than 8k. I am just curious will the checksum
work if i do a substring and
compute checksum of individual chunks of 4k and finally call
checksum_agg(checksum(value)) to
get the aggregate checksum for the data field.
TIA
"Edgardo Valdez, MCSD, MCDBA"
<EdgardoValdezMCSDMCDBA@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:86760E51-9059-4609-B55F-6000E5113C1D@.microsoft.com...
> If you absolutely need to use CHECKSUM on the ntext field and, depending
> on
> the size of the ntext values you already have in the specific table, you
> might be able to convert the ntext to nchar/nvarchar or char/varchar and
> apply checksum afterwards:
> create table ENTEXT
> (ID int, txt ntext)
> insert into ENTEXT
> values (1, 'any value')
> select CHECKSUM(convert(char(8000),txt))
> , CHECKSUM(convert(nchar(4000),txt))
> from ENTEXT
> drop table ENTEXT
> The only limit would be the number of characters you can house temporarily
> (4000 for nchar/nvarchar or 8000 for char/varchar) during the conversion
>
>
> "skg" wrote:
>|||Would checksuming only the first 8000 characters suffice? For what purpose
are you wanting to use the checksum?
"skg" <skg@.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:uNJQatfIGHA.3000@.TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
>I want to use checksum function for ntext data field in a table. But this
>function accepts only varchar. Is there a way i can find checksum for ntext
>fields in SQL 2000.
> Thanks!!!
>|||JT thanks!!!
We have pdf documents which are saved in db in text field. we want to remove
duplicates.
thx
"JT" <someone@.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:%23Gw84IpIGHA.208@.tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> Would checksuming only the first 8000 characters suffice? For what purpose
> are you wanting to use the checksum?
> "skg" <skg@.yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:uNJQatfIGHA.3000@.TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
>|||This is the problem with storing unstructured data (or at least data with an
unfamiliar structure) in a relational database, so identifying rows
containing duplicate 'values' is not simple.
Think about how PDF documents are structured internally. I'm not familiar
with the PDF format specifically, but I'm guessing it begins with a header
containing meta data fields about the documents's size, the file name the
originaly saved as, the date/time created and last written to, and probably
even it's own internal checksum values. Therefore, even if the documents are
several hundred KBs or even MBs in size, only the first 8000 or 4000 bytes
or so may uniquely identify them. You don't need to actually parse this
information, just understand it's a stream of unique bytes and create a
checksum value off of it. This would apply not just to PDFs but also to MS
Word, JPGs, ZIPs or most any structured file type. You will need to read up
on the specifications involved and experiment to confirm this theory would
consistently work. I'm interested in the results, becuase I could possibly
use this technique myself, so reply back to the group when you discover
something.
"skg" <skg@.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:OKPXYxvIGHA.3176@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> JT thanks!!!
> We have pdf documents which are saved in db in text field. we want to
> remove duplicates.
> thx
> "JT" <someone@.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:%23Gw84IpIGHA.208@.tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
>