Joining table and table valued functions using OUTER APPLY. To retrieve all the rows from both the physical table and the output of the table valued function, OUTER APPLY is used. OUTER APPLY is semantically similar to the OUTER JOIN operation.

What is difference between cross apply and outer?

The APPLY operator can take one of two forms: CROSS APPLY or OUTER APPLY. The CROSS APPLY operator returns rows from the primary (outer) table only if the table-value function produces a result set. … The OUTER APPLY form, on the other hand, returns all rows from the outer table, even if the function produces no results.

Is Outer apply same as LEFT join?

The main difference between the join and the apply operator is that the apply operator can be used to “join” the result from a function. If you use the apply-operator using a subselect it might be the same than using the join-operator.