Control-of-flow keywords

Control-of-flow keywords help SQL Server determine when and how Transact-SQL statements should execute. With these keywords, you can add logic around and within Transact-SQL statements to control program execution. Control-of-flow keywords add greater flexibility in OLTP application design and help you write clever code. Control-of-flow keywords include BEGIN…END, IF…ELSE, CASE, WHILE, BREAK, CONTINUE, RETURN, GOTO, and WAITFOR.

BEGIN…END keywords

The BEGIN…END keywords identify a code block. We typically use them to group Transact-SQL statements. The BEGIN…END blocks can be nested. We also use BEGIN…END statements to identify a code block in an IF…ELSE clause, WHILE loop, and CASE element. The following is the basic syntax for the BEGIN…END keyword block:

BEGIN
     {
    sql_statement | statement_block
     }
END

The following is a basic example of BEGIN…END:

USE [AdventureWorks2012];
GO

BEGIN
    DECLARE @Today [datetime];
    SET @Today = CURRENT_TIMESTAMP;

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