STEP n

This statement is included in the SHOWPLAN output for every query, where n is an integer, beginning with STEP 1. For some queries, SQL Server cannot effectively retrieve the results in a single step; it must break the query plan into several steps. For example, if a query includes a GROUP BY clause, the query must be broken into at least two steps: one step to select the qualifying rows from the table and another step to group them.

The following query is a single-step query:

Query:

SELECT au_lname, au_fname
FROM Authors
WHERE city = 'Oakland'

SHOWPLAN:

STEP 1
The type of query is SELECT
FROM TABLE
authors
Nested iteration
Table Scan