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Greatest and Least in T-SQL

Hasan Savran takes us through a rather useful pair of functions:

GREATEST and LEAST functions are available in Azure SQL and SQL Server 2022. GREATEST returns the maximum value from a list of expressions. LEAST returns the minimum value from a list of expressions. 

     The Highest number of expressions you can pass to these functions is 254. All expressions must be comparable for these functions to work. For example, SQL Server can automatically convert the following string to an integer and find the greatest number.

These kinds of row-wise comparisons cut out a lot of writing OR clauses. Though standard function rules apply: if you put these in the WHERE clause of queries against large tables and expect them to be your primary filters and you’ll probably be in for a nasty surprise.