Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed

In Case You Missed It: New Transact-SQL Features in SQL Server 2005

SQL Server 2005 introduced some new features and changes to the Transact-SQL (T-SQL) language:

• The xml data type

• The max specifier for the varchar and varbinary data types

• TOP enhancements

• The OUTPUT clause

• Common table expressions (CTEs)

• Ranking functions

• PIVOT and UNPIVOT

• The APPLY operator

• TRY-CATCH logic for error handling

• The TABLESAMPLE clause

Note

Unless stated otherwise, all examples in this chapter make use of tables in the bigpubs2008 database.