SQL Puzzle – SELECT ~ 1 : Guess the Answer

While waiting for an index rebuild process to complete a client of mine Comprehensive Database Performance Health Check recently asked me if I have any puzzles to discuss. Of course, I have one where you have to guess the answer for a simple select statement. Let us see if you can guess it correctly or not.

Before running the following select statement in SSMS, guess the answer.

SELECT ~ 1

Please note that right before 1 sign there is Tilde sign and not a minus sign.

Guess the Answer

Now, run the same select statement in any version of SQL Server Management Studio.

The answer is -2, now my question is that why the query above gives us an answer as -2 and not any other values. Please leave your answer in the comments section. I am very curious to know if you can find the answer to the same. I will publish answer to this puzzle sometime next week.

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Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)