Easy way to create temporary tables in SQL Server

Have you ever had a need to create temporary database tables in a SQL Server session or procedure? Are you used to creating them by hand like this:

CREATE TABLE #tmp
( 
    id INT, 
    name VARCHAR(32) 
)

Depending on what you need the table for, then there might be an easier way. Have a look at this short session:

SELECT * INTO mytemptable FROM foobar
SELECT * FROM mytemptable
DROP TABLE mytemptable

The first line creates a new temporary table based on the result set of a SELECT query, and stores the result set in the table. The query can be more complex than in the example, with JOINs, WHERE clauses etc. Incredibly useful when mangling and transforming data!

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