Question

what are the alternatives to using cursors in sql server.
i already know a trick which involves using the Row_Number() function which numbers the rows then i can loop over them one by one. any other ideas?

Answer 1

When I don’t want to complicate things with SQL cursors I often populate temporary tables or table variables, then do a while loop to go through them.

For example:

declare @someresults table (
    id int,
    somevalue varchar(10)
)

insert into @someresults
   select 
       id,
       somevalue
   from
       whatevertable

declare @currentid int
declare @currentvalue varchar(10)

while exists(select 1 from @someresults)
begin
    select top 1 @currentid = id, @currentvalue = somevalue from @someresults

    --work with those values here

    delete from @someresults where id = @currentid
end