Oups, I wanted to write: « the 4th and the 5th record are overlaping and the
5th and the 6th are overlaping too but the 4th and the 6th are not; »

I just wrote the code in VBA earlier this afternoon to work out the kinks,
since that's what I'm more familiar with, and was going to convert it to a
Stored Procedure tomorrow...the code below will undoubtedly save me a lot of
time. :)

Je te remerci,
Rob

Hi Sylvain (and anybody else following this thread),

I just came up with my final code, which takes a different approach from
yours, but seems to work very well.  It parses the original 5023-record set
into the final set of 4643 records in about 2-3 seconds.

The code below is what I ultimately used.  Note that this code includes
additional fields, since I had simplified my original recordset for the sake
of example.  If you spot any bugs, or have any suggested improvements to the
function below, I'd love to hear them.

The basic logic is to initialize one record, move to the next record, and
compare the current record in the set with the previous one.  If they're
within the same subset (AccountID, TypeID, and ContactID are equal to the
previous record), compare the start date of the current date with the end
date of the previous one (we don't need to compare start dates, since
they're already sorted in order and the current one is guaranteed to be >=
the previous one).  If the dates intersect, update the end date to be the
later of the two dates.  If the dates don't intersect, or we've moved into a
new subset, write the saved values out to the table, update the saved values
appropriately and continue.

A final note, for anybody wondering, at this point GetsInterviewReports and
GetsAccountReports can be looked up based on TypeID, so we know we only need
to track them at the subset level...it was simply convenient to include them
in this recordset rather than doing lookups/joins later on.

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.DDSTRepTable ()
RETURNS @AcctTeam table (
   AccountID char(4),
   TypeID tinyint,
   ContactID smallint,
   GetsInterviewReports bit,
   GetsAccountReports bit,
   StartDate smalldatetime,
   EndDate smalldatetime
)
BEGIN
   DECLARE @AccountID char(4)
   DECLARE @AccountIDSave char(4)
   DECLARE @TypeID tinyint
   DECLARE @TypeIDSave tinyint
   DECLARE @ContactID smallint
   DECLARE @ContactIDSave smallint
   DECLARE @IntRpts bit
   DECLARE @IntRptsSave bit
   DECLARE @AcctRpts bit
   DECLARE @AcctRptsSave bit
   DECLARE @StartDate smalldatetime
   DECLARE @StartDateSave smalldatetime
   DECLARE @EndDate smalldatetime
   DECLARE @EndDateSave smalldatetime
   DECLARE DDSTRepCursor cursor for
       SELECT AccountID, TypeID, ContactID, InterviewReports,
AccountReports, StartDate, EndDate
       FROM DDSTRepTeam
       ORDER BY AccountID, TypeID, ContactID, StartDate

   OPEN DDSTRepCursor
   FETCH NEXT FROM DDSTRepCursor INTO @AccountID, @TypeID, @ContactID,
@IntRpts, @AcctRpts, @StartDate, @EndDate
   IF @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
   BEGIN
       SET @AccountIDSave = @AccountID
       SET @TypeIDSave = @TypeID
       SET @ContactIDSave = @ContactID
       SET @IntRptsSave = @IntRpts
       SET @AcctRptsSave = @AcctRpts
       SET @StartDateSave = @StartDate
       SET @EndDateSave = @EndDate
       FETCH NEXT FROM DDSTRepCursor INTO @AccountID, @TypeID, @ContactID,
@IntRpts, @AcctRpts, @StartDate, @EndDate
   END

   WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
   BEGIN
       IF (@AccountID = @AccountIDSave) AND (@TypeID = @TypeIDSave) AND
(@ContactID = @ContactIDSave)
           IF (@StartDate < ISNULL(@EndDateSave, 'Jun 6, 2079'))
           BEGIN
               IF ISNULL(@EndDate, 'Jun 6, 2079) > @EndDateSave SET
@EndDateSave = @EndDate
           END --Necessary only so the above 'IF' isn't associated with the
'ELSE' below.
           ELSE
           BEGIN
               INSERT INTO @AcctTeam SELECT @AccountIDSave, @TypeIDSave,
@ContactIDSave, @IntRptsSave, @AcctRptsSave, @StartDateSave, @EndDateSave
               SET @StartDateSave = @StartDate
               SET @EndDateSave = @EndDate
           END
       ELSE
       BEGIN
           INSERT INTO @AcctTeam SELECT @AccountIDSave, @TypeIDSave,
@ContactIDSave, @IntRptsSave, @AcctRptsSave, @StartDateSave, @EndDateSave
           SET @AccountIDSave = @AccountID
           SET @TypeIDSave = @TypeID
           SET @ContactIDSave = @ContactID
           SET @IntRptsSave = @IntRpts
           SET @AcctRptsSave = @AcctRpts
           SET @StartDateSave = @StartDate
           SET @EndDateSave = @EndDate
       END
       FETCH NEXT FROM DDSTRepCursor INTO @AccountID, @TypeID, @ContactID,
@IntRpts, @AcctRpts, @StartDate, @EndDate
   END
   INSERT INTO @AcctTeam SELECT @AccountIDSave, @TypeIDSave,
@ContactIDSave, @IntRptsSave, @AcctRptsSave, @StartDateSave, @EndDateSave

   CLOSE DDSTRepCursor
   DEALLOCATE DDSTRepCursor
   RETURN
END