My experience has been that it means one of two possible outcomes:

1) Eternity in...

Thank you all.

OK, ... let this post/thread be a lesson to all you "know-it-all" experts. Lessons learned:

Not all UDF are bad, ... if correctly written, they can be tremendous for establishing and...

Why we use a UDF instead of NullIf:

It's very simple, ... standards and code control.

Also, for those who have a really strong understanding of SQL, they will know that many...

We don't want an error, because; if the divisor is zero, it means we merely haven't collected that data. In the example I gave, most obviously some homes do not...

Our Function for Division:

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.Divide(@Numerator Real, @Denominator Real)

RETURNS Real AS

/*

Purpose: Handle Division by Zero errors

Description: User Defined Scalar Function

Parameter(s): @Numerator and @Denominator

Test it:

SELECT...

I've taken about an hour this morning to review my company's stored procedures and other queries to review where our function "dbo.Divide(@Numerator Float, @Denominator Float)" is used. It seems that...

from: Steve Jones - SSC Editor

There have been a few people saying NULL is the absence of a value, which isn't what I've learned in database theory. This is a...

OK, ... Pray tell, ... What possible use have you had for a raised error when division by zero occurs?

I guess my point with this matter is that in 22+ years of database development, I personally have never had a need for returning an error message instead of a...

So that I can best understand the value you have described for the error message instead of returning NULL, please share with me a small block of code where such...

The above claim would only work in a logical proof if you identified that NULL= NULL . NULL !=...

To both replies thus far:

I beg to differ. The definition of "NULL" is a lack of a value. The definition of division by zero is a lack of ability to...

The below is what I have used in the past to accomplish the need for a Scalar UDF in MS SQL:

IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..##fn_CORP_Divide') IS NOT NULL DROP PROCEDURE ##fn_CORP_Divide;

CREATE PROCEDURE ##fn_CORP_Divide...

CREATE TABLE #TestUpdateA (ColA Char(1),ColB Int)

GO

CREATE TABLE #TestUpdateB (ColA Char(1),ColB Int)

GO

INSERT INTO #TestUpdateA VALUES('A','0')

GO

INSERT INTO #TestUpdateA VALUES('B','0')

GO

INSERT INTO #TestUpdateA VALUES('C','0')

GO

INSERT INTO #TestUpdateB VALUES('A','1')

GO

INSERT INTO #TestUpdateB VALUES('A','2')

GO

INSERT INTO #TestUpdateB VALUES('B','1')

GO

INSERT...