What does `from master..spt_values` mean [duplicate]

T开发者_高级运维his question already has answers here: Closed 11 years ago.

Possible Duplicate:

Why (and how) to split column using master..spt_values?

I have seen something like:

Selet ...   from master..spt_values where type='P' 

What does this mean?

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That is the syntax for specifying a databasename, schema, and table name. You can use this syntax to specify a database different from the database you are currently connected to. In your example, master is the database name, the schema name is unspecified (so it becomes the default dbo schema) and spt_values is the table name.

For clarity, the above could also be: Select ... from master.dbo.spt_values