Consider you have two tables.
**MASTER TABLE**
x------x--------------------x
| Id | Name |
x------x--------------------x
| 1 | A |
| 2 | B |
| 3 | C |
x------x--------------------x
**DETAILS TABLE**
x------x--------------------x-------x
| Id | PERIOD | QTY |
x------x--------------------x-------x
| 1 | 2014-01-13 | 10 |
| 1 | 2014-01-11 | 15 |
| 1 | 2014-01-12 | 20 |
| 2 | 2014-01-06 | 30 |
| 2 | 2014-01-08 | 40 |
x------x--------------------x-------x
There are many situations where we need to replace `INNER JOIN` with `CROSS APPLY`.
**1. Join two tables based on `TOP n` results**
Consider if we need to select `Id` and `Name` from `Master` and last two dates for each `Id` from `Details table`.
SELECT M.ID,M.NAME,D.PERIOD,D.QTY
FROM MASTER M
INNER JOIN
(
SELECT TOP 2 ID, PERIOD,QTY
FROM DETAILS D
ORDER BY CAST(PERIOD AS DATE)DESC
)D
ON M.ID=D.ID
- **[SQL FIDDLE][1]**
The above query generates the following result.
x------x---------x--------------x-------x
| Id | Name | PERIOD | QTY |
x------x---------x--------------x-------x
| 1 | A | 2014-01-13 | 10 |
| 1 | A | 2014-01-12 | 20 |
x------x---------x--------------x-------x
See, it generated results for last two dates with last two date's `Id` and then joined these records only in the outer query on `Id`, which is wrong. This should be returning both `Ids` 1 and 2 but it returned only 1 because 1 has the last two dates. To accomplish this, we need to use `CROSS APPLY`.
SELECT M.ID,M.NAME,D.PERIOD,D.QTY
FROM MASTER M
CROSS APPLY
(
SELECT TOP 2 ID, PERIOD,QTY
FROM DETAILS D
WHERE M.ID=D.ID
ORDER BY CAST(PERIOD AS DATE)DESC
)D
- **[SQL FIDDLE][2]**
and forms the following result.
x------x---------x--------------x-------x
| Id | Name | PERIOD | QTY |
x------x---------x--------------x-------x
| 1 | A | 2014-01-13 | 10 |
| 1 | A | 2014-01-12 | 20 |
| 2 | B | 2014-01-08 | 40 |
| 2 | B | 2014-01-06 | 30 |
x------x---------x--------------x-------x
Here's how it works. The query inside `CROSS APPLY` can reference the outer table, where `INNER JOIN` cannot do this (it throws compile error). When finding the last two dates, joining is done inside `CROSS APPLY` i.e., `WHERE M.ID=D.ID`.
**2. When we need `INNER JOIN` functionality using functions.**
`CROSS APPLY` can be used as a replacement with `INNER JOIN` when we need to get result from `Master` table and a `function`.
SELECT M.ID,M.NAME,C.PERIOD,C.QTY
FROM MASTER M
CROSS APPLY dbo.FnGetQty(M.ID) C
And here is the function
CREATE FUNCTION FnGetQty
(
@Id INT
)
RETURNS TABLE
AS
RETURN
(
SELECT ID,PERIOD,QTY
FROM DETAILS
WHERE ID=@Id
)
- **[SQL FIDDLE][3]**
which generated the following result
x------x---------x--------------x-------x
| Id | Name | PERIOD | QTY |
x------x---------x--------------x-------x
| 1 | A | 2014-01-13 | 10 |
| 1 | A | 2014-01-11 | 15 |
| 1 | A | 2014-01-12 | 20 |
| 2 | B | 2014-01-06 | 30 |
| 2 | B | 2014-01-08 | 40 |
x------x---------x--------------x-------x
**ADDITIONAL ADVANTAGE OF CROSS APPLY**
`APPLY` can be used as a replacement for `UNPIVOT`. Either `CROSS APPLY` or `OUTER APPLY` can be used here, which are interchangeable.
Consider you have the below table(named `MYTABLE`).
x------x-------------x--------------x
| Id | FROMDATE | TODATE |
x------x-------------x--------------x
| 1 | 2014-01-11 | 2014-01-13 |
| 1 | 2014-02-23 | 2014-02-27 |
| 2 | 2014-05-06 | 2014-05-30 |
| 3 | NULL | NULL |
x------x-------------x--------------x
The query is below.
SELECT DISTINCT ID,DATES
FROM MYTABLE
CROSS APPLY(VALUES (FROMDATE),(TODATE))
COLUMNNAMES(DATES)
- **[SQL FIDDLE][4]**
which brings you the result
x------x-------------x
| Id | DATES |
x------x-------------x
| 1 | 2014-01-11 |
| 1 | 2014-01-13 |
| 1 | 2014-02-23 |
| 1 | 2014-02-27 |
| 2 | 2014-05-06 |
| 2 | 2014-05-30 |
| 3 | NULL |
x------x-------------x
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