The Broken UDF

A User-Defined Function returns more rows

The Problem Recently, while working with one of my clients, I came across a script in which I had to introduce a scalar User-Defined Function in the SELECT statement. The SELECT used to return around 750K records. However, after introducing the UDF, the row count significantly increased to 826K. There were no other changes made […]

Function execution

A Function Gotcha with the Use of an Asterisk

This article describes and demonstrates the problem of using asterisk to select all fields from a table within a table function. (from Apr 2008)

UDF to return a multi column table of values from an input string

This UDF returns a multi column table of values from an input string of comma separated values

Get given character's position from a string

Get given character's position from a string

Understand when to use user-defined functions in SQL Server

In the simplest terms, a user-defined function (UDF) in SQL Server is a programming construct that accepts parameters, does work that typically makes use of the accepted parameters, and returns a type of result. This article will cover two types of UDFs: table-valued and scalar-valued.

Payment due date function

Calculates the nth due date for any given date, while accounting for weekends.

Complex Computed Columns

Computed columns in SQL Server 2000 allow you to have a calculated value available easily in a query. However by using a function instead of a simple formula you can build some very interesting solutions. New author Tim Chapman brings us a look at this technique.

Tokenizing a String Using PARSENAME

SQL Server string manipulation using T-SQL leaves lots to be desired. Many postings and complaints about T-SQL deal with strings, but there are ways to work with it. Author Eli Leiba brings us a way to split out portions of a string that contains tokens with a user defined function. Read on to see how this is accomplished and the code used to perform the splitting.