Jeff Moden (4/26/2015)

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The other type is probably not what most people would expect. R. Barry Young coined the phrase for these "set based loops" (which is exactly what I used to call them). The phrase is "Pseudo-Cursor" and every INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE, and DELETE uses them. They are the machine language level loops behind the scenes that cause (for example) a SELECT to return a result set.

You're seriously aware of one of the more famous Pseudo-Cursors there is... a SELECT that uses a Tally Table.