New T-SQL Features

Slava Murygin looks at some new functions in the vNext CTP 1.1:

Since Microsoft introduced XML support in SQL Server, the most common string concatenation technique was use of “XML PATH(”)” like this:

SELECT SUBSTRING(
(SELECT ‘, ‘ + name FROM master.sys.tables
FOR XML PATH(”))
,3,8000);
GO

Now you can aggregate your strings by using function “STRING_AGG”:

SELECT STRING_AGG(name, ‘, ‘) FROM master.sys.tables;

Read on for the other three.  This aggregation function, however, would make some of my code a lot simpler and easier to explain to junior database developers.  I just want it to perform well is all.