Understanding User-Defined Functions
When you start creating complex T-SQL programs or use T-SQL in another programming language such as Visual Basic, you will probably use the same calculations over and over again. Most languages give you the ability to define your own subroutines or functions to be reused in multiple places in your application. T-SQL is no different when it comes to defining your own functions. These user-defined functions provide you with the ability to create any type of function you might need. SQL Server 2000 supports three types of UDFs:
Scalar functions
Inline single table value functions
Multi-statement table value functions
User-defined functions can be created to return either a scalar (single value) or a table (either ...
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