The benefit of $serverfunction is the ability to code server functions that Zim does not support. Often there are similar functions in Zim and the server, but the mapping is not exact. As a result, the function is not present in the .sql file, forcing Zim to retrieve the entire table and evaluate the where clause on the client side. Sometimes functions are missing from the .sql file.

Users can code the equivalent server function instead of waiting for updates to the .sql file.

If $ServerFunction() is executed against a Zim table or with ExecuteMode set to ZimMode, the value returned by $ServerFunction is the value of the first argument.