Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed

Table-Valued Functions

A table-valued user-defined function returns a rowset instead of a single scalar value. You can invoke a table-valued function in the FROM clause of a SELECT statement, just as you would a table or view. In some situations, a table-valued function can almost be thought of as a view that accepts parameters, so the result set is determined dynamically. A table-valued function specifies the keyword TABLE in its RETURNS clause.

Table-valued functions are of two types: inline and multistatement. The two types of table-valued functions return the same thing, and they are also invoked the same way. The only real difference between them is the way the function is written to return the rowset. The next couple sections look at each ...