Sets a condition for the repeated execution of an SQL statement or statement block. The statements are executed repeatedly as long as the specified condition is true. The execution of statements in the WHILE loop can be controlled from inside the loop with the BREAK and CONTINUE keywords.
A. Using BREAK and CONTINUE with nested IF...ELSE and WHILE
In the following example, if the average list price of a product is less than $300, the WHILE loop doubles the prices and then selects the maximum price. If the maximum price is less than or equal to $500, the WHILE loop restarts and doubles the prices again. This loop continues doubling the prices until the maximum price is greater than $500, and then exits the WHILE loop and prints a message.
USE AdventureWorks2012; GO WHILE (SELECT AVG(ListPrice) FROM Production.Product) < $300 BEGIN UPDATE Production.Product SET ListPrice = ListPrice * 2 SELECT MAX(ListPrice) FROM Production.Product IF (SELECT MAX(ListPrice) FROM Production.Product) > $500 BREAK ELSE CONTINUE END PRINT 'Too much for the market to bear';
B. Using WHILE in a cursor
The following example uses @@FETCH_STATUS to control cursor activities in a WHILE loop.
DECLARE Employee_Cursor CURSOR FOR SELECT EmployeeID, Title FROM AdventureWorks2012.HumanResources.Employee WHERE JobTitle = 'Marketing Specialist'; OPEN Employee_Cursor; FETCH NEXT FROM Employee_Cursor; WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN FETCH NEXT FROM Employee_Cursor; END; CLOSE Employee_Cursor; DEALLOCATE Employee_Cursor; GO