Back when I was saw SQL Azure was producing an @@version string that mentioned version 11 (that's SQL Server 2012's major version number), I'd started looking at the version number every week or so. And looking for SQL Server 2012 functionality in SQL Azure. See the blog post "SQL Denali T-SQL features in SQL Azure now" for a list of the first functions supported. I'm not going to list them all again here.
And Ed Katibah's (a.k.a Spatial Ed) latest list of SQL Server 2012 spatial functionality in SQL Azure.
This week, I'd thought to look at the SQL Azure version again. I get:
Microsoft SQL Azure (RTM) – 11.0.1831.30
Jan 27 2012 23:11:55
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation
This is different (newer) than when I previously looked, so its time to look for new T-SQL 2012 functions again. And to find some. 13 of the 14 new T-SQL scalar functions (all of them except TRY_CONVERT, I wonder why that one didn't make it) are in. That would be: FORMAT, PARSE, TRY_PARSE, IIF, CHOOSE, CONCAT, EOMONTH, and the new "date-from-parts" series.
In addition, the T-SQL 2012 updated version of the T-SQL LOG function that allows a logarithm's base as a second argument works in SQL Azure as well.
There's also one more new function that isn't mentioned in the books online (I hit it by mistake when I thought I was somehow mistaken about there being a TRY_CONVERT and it works in SQL Server 2012 RC0 as well), that is TRY_CAST. It's analogous to TRY_CONVERT, as CAST is analogous to CONVERT, modulo CONVERT's expression and style arguments.
This isn't a complete implementation of SQL Server 2012's T-SQL improvements in SQL Azure, though. SQL Azure is still waiting for:
1. Sequences
2. UTF-16 collations with supplimentary characters
3. Windowing (OVER clause enhancements, LAG/LEAD and others, new analytical functions)
I didn't notice any change in spatial support moving more towards to SQL Server 2012 feature set this time, maybe Ed noticed something.
Well, a bit at a time, I guess. Welcome the new T-SQL functions to SQL Azure.
@bobbeauch