There are still a few times where you can't use parameters. A SQL "IN" clause is one of them. But otherwise, using parameters (while a lot more coding) will result in faster program execution because the database can put your statement in it's procedure cache. The next time you ask for it to be run, the database can pull it out of cache, and doesn't have to parse your SQL to check for validity (do metadata lookups to make sure all the columns & tables exist, check for syntax errors, etc), since it's already done that before.
Chip H.
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