This is an example of how you can use cursors to let the server handle some of the processing
Declare empid_cursor cursor
--This SQL sTatement will be the contents of the cursor
--The example shown here gets all the empids where they
--Joined before the first of the year
for SELECT userid FROM users
WHERE dateJoined < 01/01/2001
for read only
Open empid_cursor
While (0 = 0) Begin
declare @userID varchar(15)
declare @datejoined datetime
fetch userid_cursor into @userid
If (@@Fetch_Status <>0) Break
Perform any actions here get their join date
SELECT @datejoined = datejoined FROM users
WHERE userid = @userid
Were gonna insert a record for every userid into a table
INSERT INTO contest (userid, datejoined)
VALUES (@userid, @datejoined)
End
Close empid_cursor
Deallocate empid_cursor
Of course there are other ways to go about this, but this is just a demo of how this technique could be used.