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When to use scaler subquery

Hi All,
I know,we can fetch data from different tables using join condition and we can also sub-query to get the value from another table.
Can anybody tell me when we should go for scaler subquery.
Regards,
Bikram
Answers
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There's no hard and fast rule and there are so many different situations when writing queries that it's not something that could be easily answered.
Me personally, I rarely use a scalar subquery, preferring my tables to be joined as I find that just reads clearer in the code.
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Hi, @Bikram
I know,we can fetch data from different tables using join condition and we can also sub-query to get the value from another table.
Sometimes we can use a scalar sub-query to get a value from another table. A scalar sub-query can only return one column and (at most) only one row. If we need to get multiple columns from the same table, a join is probably better. If we need to get multiple rows, a join is definitely better. It usually has to be an outer join.
Aside from that, like Blushadow, I don't know of any specific rule about when a scalar sub-query is better. Like Blushadow, I use joins much more than scalar sub-queries.
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As a general rule I would always prefer the join. but as with any rule there are exceptions.
Here are a few cases when I would consider if that is such an exception [Focus Topic in parenthesis]
- If there are many tables (> 7) in the join it can help with performance (hard parse) to move some of them into a scalar subquery [Performance]
- Lookup tables that are technically detail tables. For example a language based name lookup. This tends to confuse the optimizer [Performance]
- Sometimes it helps to avoid cluttering the code [Maintainability]
- For aggregation queries I often prefer to do lookups at the end to avoid having to pass the additional value though all the layers of aggregation [Maintainability].
- In rare cases uncorrelated subqueries can be (result) cached. This is often preferable to a join. [Performance]
- If the subquery can be embedded in a case construct that can avoid executing the subquery is a large number of cases (short circuit evaluation). This is sometimes not easy to do in a join, althogh the optimizer still might find a better execution plan [Performance, Error Handling]