Inline function in SQL Server

Vipendra Verma

14y12.1k

I want to know what is Inline function in SQL server.

Thank you.

4 Replies

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Rijwan Ansari4y ago
An inline function is similar to a view. This means that an inline function can only contain a single SELECT statement, and the columns in the SELECT statement implicitly define the columns of the returned table set of the function.
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satheesh d4y ago
Inline table valued function are one which returns a table as a output and while creating a new function, the function should returns table while using Inline table valued function.
And the function body is not enclosed between begin and end block here. The structure of the table which are returned is determined by select statement inside the function.
This Inline function can be used to achieve the functionality of parameterized views. this returned table can also be used in joins with other tables.
For example, lets take this table and I want to create inline tabled function to return employee details based on the department id,

CREATE FUNCTION fn_ReturnEmployeesById(@Id int)
RETURNS TABLE
AS
RETURN (Select EmpId, EmpName
      from [Tbl_EmpDetails]
      where DeptId = @Id)

SELECT * FROM fn_ReturnEmployeesById(2)
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Jignesh Trivedi14y ago
hi,

Please refer

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa214762%28v=sql.80%29.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa175924%28v=sql.80%29.aspx
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Akkiraju Ivaturi14y ago
Inline functions are subset of user defined functions introduced in sql server 2000 SP3. You can say inline functions are parameterized views. By nature Views do not accept parameters in the search conditions.

For example consider the following view
Create view myView as
select employeeid from employees where company = 'Microsoft'

If you would like to introduce a variable called company you cannot do it in the above view and for this purpose we can use inline user defined function. It is as below:
create function fn_GetEmployeesOfCompany
(@company nvarchar(500))
returns table
as
return (select employeeid from employees where company = @company)
go

you can call the above function as below:
select * from fn_getemployeesofcompany(n'Google')
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