Like functions in programming languages, SQL Server user-defined functions are routines that accept parameters, perform an action, such as a complex calculation, and return the result of that action as a value. The return value can either be a single scalar value or a result set.
User-defined functions
Why use user-defined functions (UDFs)?
They allow modular programming.
You can create the function once, store it in the database, and call it any number of times in your program. User-defined functions can be modified independently of the program source code.
They allow faster execution.
Similar to stored procedures, Transact-SQL user-defined functions reduce the compilation cost of Transact-SQL code by caching the plans and reusing them for repeated executions. This means the user-defined function does not need to be reparsed and reoptimized with each use resulting in much faster execution times.
CLR functions offer significant performance advantage over Transact-SQL functions for computational tasks, string manipulation, and business logic. Transact-SQL functions are better suited for data-access intensive logic.
They can reduce network traffic.
An operation that filters data based on some complex constraint that cannot be expressed in a single scalar expression can be expressed as a function. The function can then invoked in the WHERE clause to reduce the number or rows sent to the client.