Is SQL DATEDIFF(year, …, …) an Expensive Computation?

Question

I\'m trying to optimize up some horrendously complicated SQL queries because it takes too long to finish.

In my queries, I have dynamically created SQL statements wi

Answer 1

DATEDIFF is quite efficient compared to other methods of handling of datetime values, like strings. (see this SO answer).

In this case, it sounds like you going over and over the same data, which is likely more expensive than using a temp table. For example, statistics will be generated.