My first table valued function and cursor

Question

I have this query:

SELECT name, lastname
FROM contestant 
WHERE  name= \'John\'  AND lastname = \'Smith\'

I get several results from the query

Answer 1

OK as long as you understand that:

1. The table designs are incorrect - you should have a contestant key in both tables.
2. A join is the solution to this, not a cursor
3. What I am providing here is the worst possible way to solve this and what you need to learn from this is that you should never use this as a solution to this problem!

But in answer to your question how do I use a cursor, here is some untested code that hopefully gives you the concept.

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[myFunction]
(
@name varchar (44),
@lastname varchar (44) 
)
RETURNS 
@tmpTable TABLE 
(   
name char(44),
lastname char(44),
prize varchar(44),
city char(44)
)
AS
BEGIN

DECLARE @c_name varchar (44)
DECLARE @c_lastname varchar (44) 


DECLARE myCursor CURSOR FOR

SELECT name, lastname
FROM contestant 
WHERE  name= @name  AND lastname = @lastname

OPEN myCursor

FETCH NEXT FROM myCursor INTO  @c_name, @c_lastname

WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS = 0) 
BEGIN

    -- we've found a row. Name look for the matching row in prize
    INSERT INTO @tmpTable (name, lastname,prize, city)
    SELECT name, lastname,prize, city 
    FROM prize
    WHERE name = @c_name AND lastname = @c_lastname

    FETCH NEXT FROM myCursor INTO @c_name, @c_lastname

END /*WHILE*/

CLOSE myCursor
DEALLOCATE myCursor

RETURN
END

and as a comparison, here is the proper solution:

SELECT draw.name, draw.lastname, draw.prize, draw.city
FROM 
draw
INNER JOIN
contestant 
ON draw.name = contestant.name
AND draw.lastname = contestant.lastname
WHERE  contestant.name= 'John'  
AND contestant.lastname = 'Smith'

Its smaller, simpler and faster.