What's the difference between DECLARE TABLE and CREATE TABLE?

Question

I need to translate given T-SQL statements into another language. These T-SQL statements are using DECLARE TABLE. What's the difference between DECLARE TABLE and CREATE TABLE?

For example, what’s the difference between the following two lines?

declare @t table (account_id varchar(512), num_events int);

Create table t {account_id varchar(512), num_events int}

Solution 1

The only difference between DECLARE TABLE and CREATE TABLE is:

• DECLARE TABLE: You will create a table on the fly and use that table later on in the query and not store it physically.

• CREATE TABLE: You will create a table physically inside the database.

Solution 2

The difference is that "Declare table" would be a table level variable.

The "create table" will create a table in the database.