SQL Server Execution Plans - Red Gate Software

INSERT statements
Chapter 2: Graphical Execution Plans for Basic Queries
INSERT statements are always against a single table. This would lead you to believe
that execution plans will be equally simplistic. However, in order to take into account
rollbacks and data integrity checks, execution plans for insert queries can be quite
complicated.
Listing 2.15 contains a very simple INSERT statement.
INSERT INTO Person.Address
(AddressLine1,
AddressLine2,
City,
StateProvinceID,
PostalCode,
rowguid,
ModifiedDate
)
VALUES (N'1313 Mockingbird Lane', -- AddressLine1 - nvarchar(60)
N'Basement', -- AddressLine2 - nvarchar(60)
N'Springfield', -- City - nvarchar(30)
79, -- StateProvinceID - int
N'02134', -- PostalCode - nvarchar(15)
NEWID(), -- rowguid - uniqueidentifier
GETDATE() -- ModifiedDate - datetime
)
Listing 2.15
There are two ways I could run the query above to generate the execution plan. I could
retrieve an estimated plan, which is what I did. An estimated plan is a plan that is
compiled, but not run. The other method for getting an execution plan would be to wrap
the query in a transaction and roll back that transaction after capturing the execution
plan. I chose to use the estimated plan because it was easier and still suited our needs.
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