SQL Server 2008 – Inline variable initialization

Microsoft has extended the support of inline variable initialization feature from the programming languages in to T-SQL in SQL Server 2008.

When we want to declare and initialize a value to variable in T- SQL, we need to do it is two steps (declaration & initialization) as shown in the example

DECLARE @V_Value DATETIME
SET @V_Value =GETDATE()

In SQL Server 2008 this can be simplified by combining both the lines into a single steps as we do in programming languages

DECLARE @V_Value DATETIME = GETDATE()

Even though it is a very small feature, it helps the developers who have the technical background for programmig languages like JAVA, C#.NET , VB.NET etc