Functions
Functions are used either to format and manipulate data or to return information to the user that would ordinarily not be available to him directly within the SQL language. There are really two classes of functions: system-defined and user-defined. System-defined functions are created by Microsoft and installed when SQL Server is installed. User-defined functions are created by the user by using the CREATE FUNCTION command. (User-defined functions are covered in Chapter 13, "Creating Custom Functions." )
Within the class of system-defined functions are several types of functions:
String functions are used to manipulate strings. These types of functions can be used to pull out certain parts of the string, perform a search against ...
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