Is there any way to DISTINCT or group by a text (or ntext) in SQL Server 2005?

Question

In a table, I have a column called MEMO_TEXT that is a text data type. When I try creating a view and use a GROUP BY, I get the following error:

SQL S

Answer 1

Try these...

SELECT DistinctMemo = DISTINCT(CAST(MEMO_TEXT AS varchar(max)))
FROM   MyTable

-- or

SELECT DistinctMemo = CAST(MEMO_TEXT AS varchar(max))
FROM   MyTable
GROUP BY CAST(MEMO_TEXT AS varchar(max))