WHILE loop

Remarks#

Using a WHILE loop or other iterative process is not normally the most efficient way to process data in SQL Server.

You should prefer to use a set-based query on the data to achieve the same results, where possible

Using While loop

The WHILE loop can be used as an alternative to CURSORS. The following example will print numbers from 0 to 99.

 DECLARE @i int = 0;
 WHILE(@i < 100)
 BEGIN
    PRINT @i;
    SET @i = @i+1
 END

While loop with min aggregate function usage

DECLARE @ID AS INT;

SET @ID = (SELECT MIN(ID) from TABLE);

WHILE @ID IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
    PRINT @ID;
    SET @ID = (SELECT MIN(ID) FROM TABLE WHERE ID > @ID);
END