SQL with Manoj

–> Question:

I need to see two small scenario when people should use CROSS APPLY and OUTER APPLY.

Please discuss the scenario with code and example.

Thanks !
 

–> My Answer:

CROSS APPLY acts like an INNER JOIN, and OUTER APPLY acts like a LEFT OUTER JOIN.

–> The APPLY clause (irrespective of CROSS/OUTER option) gives you flexibility to pass table’s columns as parameters to UDFs/functions while Joining while that table. It was not possible with JOINS. The function will execute for each row value passed to the UDF as parameter. But the JOIN works as a whole set.

Check the blog post on CROSS APPLY vs OUTER APPLY operators, https://sqlwithmanoj.com/2010/12/11/cross-apply-outer-apply/

–> Apart from this you can also use APPLY clause with Tables/SubQueries, like if you want to get top 5 products sold by sales persons, or get top 10 populated Cities from all States.

Check here: Using CROSS APPLY & OUTER APPLY operators with UDFs, Derived-Tables/Sub-Queries & XML data, https://sqlwithmanoj.com/2012/01/03/using-cross-apply-outer-apply-operators-with-udfs-derived-tables-xml-data/
 

–> Answer from Russ Loski:

First let’s start with the use for APPLY.

You would use APPLY if you need to use a column from a table as an argument in a derived table or function. For example, this query from http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2009/08/21/sql-server-get-query-plan-along-with-query-text-and-execution-count/:

SELECT cp.objtype AS ObjectType,
OBJECT_NAME(st.objectid,st.dbid) AS ObjectName,
cp.usecounts AS ExecutionCount,
st.TEXT AS QueryText,
qp.query_plan AS QueryPlan
FROM sys.dm_exec_cached_plans AS cp
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan(cp.plan_handle) AS qp
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(cp.plan_handle) AS st
--WHERE OBJECT_NAME(st.objectid,st.dbid) = 'YourObjectName'

I need to use columns from dm_exec_cahced_plans to pass to two functions to get rows from those functions. I have to use the APPLY keyword (rather than Join) to be able to do that.

I can do the same with a derived table:

SELECT * 
FROM TableA 
outer apply (
SELECT * from TableB
where TableA.id = TableB.id
) tb2

That is a horrible example (you can do the same using standard join syntax). But there are very rare circumstances where I need to use a column in a where clause in a derived table, but I can’t use a join.

The difference between CROSS APPLY and OUTER APPLY is the difference between INNER JOIN and OUTER JOIN. CROSS APPLY will only return rows where there is a row in both the first table and the second table/function, while OUTER APPLY returns a row if there is a row in the first Table even if the second table/function returns no rows.
 

Ref link.