Cursor vs Set - is it possible

From: Steve Z (szlamany_at_antarescomputing.com)
Date: 04/06/04 

Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 12:36:05 -0700

I always try to use a SELECT and avoid CURSOR logic - whenever possible - but this time I can't even think of a way to SET-base this operation.

I've got a table that stores dates of ATTENDANCE. Only non-present dates have rows for a person.
ABSENT on 04/02/2004 gets a row for a person - ABSENT again on 04/07/2004 gets a row for a person.

I want to create a UDF that returns the "consecutive number" of ABSENT entries in this table for a person, based on a starting date and going backwards.

I could simply loop a working variable with a date and do a SELECT to see if a record exists - then decrement the date by one day and check again - that was the way we did it on the mainframe VAX we are converting from...

BTW - weekends and holidays are ignored - they don't break the CONSECUTIVE counter...

Any help would be greatly appreciated...