How do you determine the impact of CTEs on your database's execution plan?
Understanding the impact of Common Table Expressions (CTEs) on your database's execution plan is crucial for optimizing query performance. As a Business Intelligence (BI) professional, you're likely familiar with the concept of execution plans, which are roadmaps that SQL databases use to retrieve data. CTEs, on the other hand, are temporary result sets that can be referenced within a SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement. They're often used for readability and to structure complex queries, but they can have varying effects on how a query is executed.