jshunter@waikato.ac.nz wrote:

> Does anyone know of a built-in function to return the maximum possible
> value of a given datatype? I have to return the biggest value for a
> smalldatetime or datetime in a view if the field is null,

If you (and the recipient of this return value, if it isn't another
piece of T-SQL) can wrap your head around ternary logic, then you
can use the null value as is:

where not (some_date > end_date)

Or, depending on the expected longevity of the system, you can (a)
hard-code June 6, 2079 (max smalldatetime) or (b) avoid smalldatetime
and hard-code December 31, 9999 (max datetime). I would personally
go with (b), as I can't imagine actually designing a system that had
a good reason to use smalldatetime for anything.