How many times is function called - sql-server

Question

Lets have a following query:
SELECT * FROM {tablename} WHERE ColumnId = dbo.GetId()
where dbo.GetId() is non-deterministic user defined function. The question is whether dbo.GetId() is called only once for entire query and its result is then applied or is it called for each row? I think it is called for every row, but I don't know of any way how to prove it.
Also would following query be more efficient?
DECLARE #Id int
SET #Id = dbo.GetId()
SELECT * FROM {tablename} WHERE ColumnId = #Id

Answer 1

I doubt this is guaranteed anywhere. Use a variable if you want to ensure it.
I amended #Prdp's example
CREATE VIEW vw_rand
AS
SELECT Rand() ran
GO
/*Return 0 or 1 with 50% probability*/
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.Udf_non_deterministic ()
RETURNS INT
AS
BEGIN
RETURN
(SELECT CAST(10000 * ran AS INT) % 2
FROM vw_rand)
END
go
SELECT *
FROM master..spt_values
WHERE dbo.Udf_non_deterministic() = 1
In this case it is only evaluated once. Either all rows are returned or zero.
The reason for this is that the plan has a filter with a startup predicate.
The startup expression predicate is [tempdb].[dbo].[Udf_non_deterministic]()=(1).
This is only evaluated once when the filter is opened to see whether to get rows from the subtree at all - not for each row passing through it.
But conversely the below returns a different number of rows each time indicating that it is evaluated per row. The comparison to the column prevents it being evaluated up front in the filter as with the previous example.
SELECT *
FROM master..spt_values
WHERE dbo.Udf_non_deterministic() = (number - number)
And this rewrite goes back to evaluating once (for me) but CROSS APPLY still gave multiple evaluations.
SELECT *
FROM master..spt_values
OUTER APPLY(SELECT dbo.Udf_non_deterministic() ) AS C(X)
WHERE X = (number - number)

Answer 2

Here is one way to prove it
View
View is created to add a Nondeterministic inbuilt Functions inside user defined function
CREATE VIEW vw_rand
AS
SELECT Rand() ran
Nondeterministic Functions
Now create a Nondeterministic user defined Functions using the above view
CREATE FUNCTION Udf_non_deterministic ()
RETURNS FLOAT
AS
BEGIN
RETURN
(SELECT ran
FROM vw_rand)
END
Sample table
CREATE TABLE #test
(
id INT,
name VARCHAR(50)
)
INSERT #test
VALUES (1,'a'),
(2,'b'),
(3,'c'),
(4,'d')
SELECT dbo.Udf_non_deterministic (), *
FROM #test
Result:
id name non_deterministic_val
1 a 0.203123494465542
2 b 0.888439497446073
3 c 0.633749721616085
4 d 0.104620204364744
As you can see for all the rows the function is called

Answer 3

Yes it does get called once per row.
See following thread for debugging functions
SQL Functions - Logging
And yes the below query is efficient as the function is called only once.
DECLARE #Id int
SET #Id = dbo.GetId()
SELECT * FROM {tablename} WHERE ColumnId = #Id