When should I use Cross Apply over Inner Join?
What is the main purpose of using CROSS APPLY?
I have read (vaguely, through posts on the Internet) that
cross apply can be more efficient when selecting over large data sets if you are partitioning. (Paging comes to mind)
I also know that
CROSS APPLY doesn't require a UDF as the right-table.
In most
INNER JOIN queries (one-to-many relationships), I could rewrite them to use CROSS APPLY, but they always give me equivalent execution plans.
Can anyone give me a good example of when
CROSS APPLY makes a difference in those cases where INNER JOIN will work as well?
Edit:
Here's a trivial example, where the execution plans are exactly the same. (Show me one where they differ and where
cross apply is faster/more efficient)create table Company (
companyId int identity(1,1)
, companyName varchar(100)
, zipcode varchar(10)
, constraint PK_Company primary key (companyId)
)
GO
create table Person (
personId int identity(1,1)
, personName varchar(100)
, companyId int
, constraint FK_Person_CompanyId foreign key (companyId) references dbo.Company(companyId)
, constraint PK_Person primary key (personId)
)
GO
insert Company
select 'ABC Company', '19808' union
select 'XYZ Company', '08534' union
select '123 Company', '10016'
insert Person
select 'Alan', 1 union
select 'Bobby', 1 union
select 'Chris', 1 union
select 'Xavier', 2 union
select 'Yoshi', 2 union
select 'Zambrano', 2 union
select 'Player 1', 3 union
select 'Player 2', 3 union
select 'Player 3', 3
/* using CROSS APPLY */
select *
from Person p
cross apply (
select *
from Company c
where p.companyid = c.companyId
) Czip
/* the equivalent query using INNER JOIN */
select *
from Person p
inner join Company c on p.companyid = c.companyIdAnswer :
Can anyone give me a good example of when CROSS APPLY makes a difference in those cases where INNER JOIN will work as well?
See the article in my blog for detailed performance comparison:
CROSS APPLY works better on things that have no simple JOIN condition.
This one selects
3 last records from t2 for each record from t1:SELECT t1.*, t2o.*
FROM t1
CROSS APPLY
(
SELECT TOP 3 *
FROM t2
WHERE t2.t1_id = t1.id
ORDER BY
t2.rank DESC
) t2o
It cannot be easily formulated with an
INNER JOIN condition.
You could probably do something like that using
CTE's and window function:WITH t2o AS
(
SELECT t2.*, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY t1_id ORDER BY rank) AS rn
FROM t2
)
SELECT t1.*, t2o.*
FROM t1
INNER JOIN
t2o
ON t2o.t1_id = t1.id
AND t2o.rn <= 3
, but this is less readable and probably less efficient.
Update:
Just checked.
master is a table of about 20,000,000 records with a PRIMARY KEY on id.
This query:
WITH q AS
(
SELECT *, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY id) AS rn
FROM master
),
t AS
(
SELECT 1 AS id
UNION ALL
SELECT 2
)
SELECT *
FROM t
JOIN q
ON q.rn <= t.id
runs for almost
30 seconds, while this one:WITH t AS
(
SELECT 1 AS id
UNION ALL
SELECT 2
)
SELECT *
FROM t
CROSS APPLY
(
SELECT TOP (t.id) m.*
FROM master m
ORDER BY
id
) q
is instant.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1139160/when-should-i-use-cross-apply-over-inner-join