Creating User Defined Functions In SQL Server 2000
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Microsoft SQL Server 2000 allows us to create our own functions and call them through code. These functions are known as UDF's (User Defined Functions). In this article Mitchell's going to teach us how to create three different types of UDF's and how to work with them through batches of SQL code.From a programmer's perspective, functions allow us to break up our code into easily re-useable chunks of inter-related logic, which we can reference by name, pass parameters to, and receive return values from. It is often handy to create functions to work with data in a database. Before the release of Microsoft SQL Server 2000, however, this was only possible using stored procedures.
Along with tightly integrated support for XML, several new data types and advanced data import/export functionality, Microsoft SQL Server 2000 also allows us to create our own functions and call them through code. These functions are known as UDF's (User Defined Functions).
In this article we're going to take a look at creating our first UDF. We will also look at the three different types of UDF's and how to work with UDF's through batches of SQL code.
To implement the examples shown in this article you should have SQL Server 2000 installed on a Windows 2000 machine and have access to this machine as an administrator. You can download a free 120-day evaluation version of Microsoft SQL Server
here.
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