In this video, I show how we can use the APPLY operator to reshape datasets, allowing us to unpivot tables and also calculate the greatest and least values for a row.
If you look closely at the scripts, you’ll see 08 and 10. In the source control repo, I also have a script 09 that covers splitting strings. Using APPLY to split strings has always been a bit of a niche case, but prior to SQL Server 2016’s introduction of STRING_SPLIT() and SQL Server 2022’s improvement of the function, I could make the case that it sometimes made sense to know how to split strings via APPLY. Today, not so much, which is why I tossed that demo from the video.