Performance of While LOOP vs CURSOR

[BikeBoy20032004]

Hi,

I can implement either a While LOOP or a Fast_forward Cursor, which one would generally perform better for a set of say 10,000 thousand records?

Thanks

 

[SQLSister]

Neither. It is best to perform operations in sets vice loops if at all possible. I have read that while loops are minimally more efficient than cursors, but neither is anything to write home about. Replaing a cursor with a set-based solution can often saves hours of processing time.

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[BikeBoy20032004]

by set-based I think you mean a table-driven solution, either temp table or a query, such as:

select A, B
from (select C from table C....)

I will see if I can do this instead, thanks.