By: Matt Batalon, MCITP

 Another form of temporary storage that can be queried or joined against, much like a table variable, temp table or CTE  Based on user defined table type that describes schema for a table  Commonly referred to as Table Valued Parameters (TVP) or User Defined Table Types

 Can be passed as a single parameter (set of rows) to a stored procedure or user defined function unlike a table variable or temp table  Can be passed between stored procedures or from client side application  Reusability; the schema for a TVP is centrally maintained

 TVP types are displayed in SQL Server Management Studio unless manually dropped  Programmability  Types  User Defined Table Types  Can expand to see columns, constraints, indexes

 Ease of encapsulating multiple parameters into a single parameter  Reduces round trips to the server, which can aid in performance  Strongly typed with the CREATE TYPE…TABLE statement  Easily maintainable code because schema can be defined only once then can be reused

 Forced to send multiple parameters as arguments  Use String Manipulation to encapsulate multiple parameters  Individual Database calls, not a set based approach

 Using a TVP vs. Delimited String  Bulk inserting a TVP  Bulk Update using a TVP  Encapsulate business logic using TVPs, and reducing round trips to server

 Data cannot be modified, must be passed as READ ONLY  Cannot use ALTER table statement on a TVP, must be dropped and recreated  No support for Select INTO or INSERT Exec statement

 Books online ◦ Examples for using with ADO.net ◦ Comparison with BCP ◦ Connectivity Books : Programming SQL Server 2008 by Leonard Lobel, Andrew Bust, Stephen Forte