Scalar Function cause all sorts of performance issues, so its better to wrap the logic into an Inline Table Valued Function if possible. This is the function I used to replace some User Defined Functions which selected the Min/Max dates from a list of upto ten dates. When tested on my dataset of 1 Million rows the Scalar Function took over 15 minutes before I killed the query the Inline TVF took 1 minute which is the same amount of time as selecting the resultset into a temporary table. To use this call the function from either a subquery in the the SELECT or a CROSS APPLY.

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.Get_Min_Max_Date
(
    @Date1  datetime,
    @Date2  datetime,
    @Date3  datetime,
    @Date4  datetime,
    @Date5  datetime,
    @Date6  datetime,
    @Date7  datetime,
    @Date8  datetime,
    @Date9  datetime,
    @Date10 datetime
)
RETURNS TABLE
AS
RETURN
(
    SELECT      Max(DateValue)  Max_Date,
                Min(DateValue)  Min_Date
    FROM        (
                    VALUES  (@Date1),
                            (@Date2),
                            (@Date3),
                            (@Date4),
                            (@Date5),
                            (@Date6),
                            (@Date7),
                            (@Date8),
                            (@Date9),
                            (@Date10)
                )   AS Dates(DateValue)
)

这是一个古老的答案，在很多方面都有问题。

请参阅https://stackoverflow.com/a/6871572/194653，它有更多的赞，与sql server 2008+一起工作，并处理空值等。

原创但有问题的答案:

你可以使用CASE语句:

SELECT
    CASE
        WHEN Date1 >= Date2 AND Date1 >= Date3 THEN Date1
        WHEN Date2 >= Date1 AND Date2 >= Date3 THEN Date2
        WHEN Date3 >= Date1 AND Date3 >= Date2 THEN Date3
        ELSE                                        Date1
    END AS MostRecentDate

请尝试使用UNPIVOT:

SELECT MAX(MaxDt) MaxDt
   FROM tbl 
UNPIVOT
   (MaxDt FOR E IN 
      (Date1, Date2, Date3)
)AS unpvt;

以下两个示例中的任何一个都可以工作:

SELECT  MAX(date_columns) AS max_date
FROM    ( (SELECT   date1 AS date_columns
           FROM     data_table         )
          UNION
          ( SELECT  date2 AS date_columns
            FROM    data_table
          )
          UNION
          ( SELECT  date3 AS date_columns
            FROM    data_table
          )
        ) AS date_query

第二个是对拉塞夫克的答案的补充。

SELECT  MAX(MostRecentDate)
FROM    ( SELECT    CASE WHEN date1 >= date2
                              AND date1 >= date3 THEN date1
                         WHEN date2 >= date1
                              AND date2 >= date3 THEN date2
                         WHEN date3 >= date1
                              AND date3 >= date2 THEN date3
                         ELSE date1
                    END AS MostRecentDate
          FROM      data_table
        ) AS date_query 

另一种使用CASE WHEN的方法

SELECT CASE true 
       WHEN max(row1) >= max(row2) THEN CASE true WHEN max(row1) >= max(row3) THEN max(row1) ELSE max(row3) end ELSE
       CASE true WHEN max(row2) >= max(row3) THEN max(row2) ELSE max(row3) END END
FROM yourTable

我更喜欢基于case-when的解决方案，我的假设是，与其他可能的解决方案(如交叉应用、values()、自定义函数等)相比，它对可能的性能下降的影响应该最小。

下面是case-when版本，它在大多数可能的测试用例中处理空值:

SELECT
    CASE 
        WHEN Date1 > coalesce(Date2,'0001-01-01') AND Date1 > coalesce(Date3,'0001-01-01') THEN Date1 
        WHEN Date2 > coalesce(Date3,'0001-01-01') THEN Date2 
        ELSE Date3
    END AS MostRecentDate
    , *
from 
(values
     (  1, cast('2001-01-01' as Date), cast('2002-01-01' as Date), cast('2003-01-01' as Date))
    ,(  2, cast('2001-01-01' as Date), cast('2003-01-01' as Date), cast('2002-01-01' as Date))
    ,(  3, cast('2002-01-01' as Date), cast('2001-01-01' as Date), cast('2003-01-01' as Date))
    ,(  4, cast('2002-01-01' as Date), cast('2003-01-01' as Date), cast('2001-01-01' as Date))
    ,(  5, cast('2003-01-01' as Date), cast('2001-01-01' as Date), cast('2002-01-01' as Date))
    ,(  6, cast('2003-01-01' as Date), cast('2002-01-01' as Date), cast('2001-01-01' as Date))
    ,( 11, cast(NULL         as Date), cast('2002-01-01' as Date), cast('2003-01-01' as Date))
    ,( 12, cast(NULL         as Date), cast('2003-01-01' as Date), cast('2002-01-01' as Date))
    ,( 13, cast('2003-01-01' as Date), cast(NULL         as Date), cast('2002-01-01' as Date))
    ,( 14, cast('2002-01-01' as Date), cast(NULL         as Date), cast('2003-01-01' as Date))
    ,( 15, cast('2003-01-01' as Date), cast('2002-01-01' as Date), cast(NULL         as Date))
    ,( 16, cast('2002-01-01' as Date), cast('2003-01-01' as Date), cast(NULL         as Date))
    ,( 21, cast('2003-01-01' as Date), cast(NULL         as Date), cast(NULL         as Date))
    ,( 22, cast(NULL         as Date), cast('2003-01-01' as Date), cast(NULL         as Date))
    ,( 23, cast(NULL         as Date), cast(NULL         as Date), cast('2003-01-01' as Date))
    ,( 31, cast(NULL         as Date), cast(NULL         as Date), cast(NULL         as Date))

) as demoValues(id, Date1,Date2,Date3)
order by id
;

结果是:

MostRecent    id   Date1      Date2      Date3
2003-01-01    1    2001-01-01 2002-01-01 2003-01-01
2003-01-01    2    2001-01-01 2003-01-01 2002-01-01
2003-01-01    3    2002-01-01 2001-01-01 2002-01-01
2003-01-01    4    2002-01-01 2003-01-01 2001-01-01
2003-01-01    5    2003-01-01 2001-01-01 2002-01-01
2003-01-01    6    2003-01-01 2002-01-01 2001-01-01
2003-01-01    11   NULL       2002-01-01 2003-01-01
2003-01-01    12   NULL       2003-01-01 2002-01-01
2003-01-01    13   2003-01-01 NULL       2002-01-01
2003-01-01    14   2002-01-01 NULL       2003-01-01
2003-01-01    15   2003-01-01 2002-01-01 NULL
2003-01-01    16   2002-01-01 2003-01-01 NULL
2003-01-01    21   2003-01-01 NULL       NULL
2003-01-01    22   NULL       2003-01-01 NULL
2003-01-01    23   NULL       NULL       2003-01-01
NULL          31   NULL       NULL       NULL