How Stuff and 'For Xml Path' work in Sql Server

Question

Table is:

+----+------+
| Id | Name |
+----+------+    
| 1  | aaa  |
| 1  | bbb  |
| 1  | ccc  |
| 1  | ffffd  |
| 1  | eee  |
+----+------+

Answer 1

SELECT ID, 
    abc = STUFF(
                 (SELECT ',' + name FROM temp1 FOR XML PATH ('')), 1, 1, ''
               ) 
FROM temp1 GROUP BY id

Here in the above query STUFF function is used to just remove the first comma (,) from the generated xml string (,aaa,bbb,ccc,ffffd,eee) then it will become (aaa,bbb,ccc,ffffd,eee).

And FOR XML PATH('') simply converts column data into (,aaa,bbb,ccc,ffffd,eee) string but in PATH we are passing '' so it will not create a XML tag.

And at the end we have grouped records using ID column.

Answer 2

PATH mode is used in generating XML from a SELECT query

1. SELECT   
       ID,  
       Name  
FROM temp1
FOR XML PATH;  

Ouput:
<row>
<ID>1</ID>
<Name>aaa</Name>
</row>

<row>
<ID>1</ID>
<Name>bbb</Name>
</row>

<row>
<ID>1</ID>
<Name>ccc</Name>
</row>

<row>
<ID>1</ID>
<Name>ffffd</Name>
</row>

<row>
<ID>1</ID>
<Name>eee</Name>
</row>

The Output is element-centric XML where each column value in the resulting rowset is wrapped in an row element. Because the SELECT clause does not specify any aliases for the column names, the child element names generated are the same as the corresponding column names in the SELECT clause.

For each row in the rowset a tag is added.

2.
SELECT   
       ID,  
       Name  
FROM temp1
FOR XML PATH('');

Ouput:
<ID>1</ID>
<Name>aaa</Name>
<ID>1</ID>
<Name>bbb</Name>
<ID>1</ID>
<Name>ccc</Name>
<ID>1</ID>
<Name>ffffd</Name>
<ID>1</ID>
<Name>eee</Name>

For Step 2: If you specify a zero-length string, the wrapping element is not produced.

3. 

    SELECT   

           Name  
    FROM temp1
    FOR XML PATH('');

    Ouput:
    <Name>aaa</Name>
    <Name>bbb</Name>
    <Name>ccc</Name>
    <Name>ffffd</Name>
    <Name>eee</Name>

4. SELECT   
        ',' +Name  
FROM temp1
FOR XML PATH('')

Ouput:
,aaa,bbb,ccc,ffffd,eee

In Step 4 we are concatenating the values.

5. SELECT ID,
    abc = (SELECT   
            ',' +Name  
    FROM temp1
    FOR XML PATH('') )
FROM temp1

Ouput:
1   ,aaa,bbb,ccc,ffffd,eee
1   ,aaa,bbb,ccc,ffffd,eee
1   ,aaa,bbb,ccc,ffffd,eee
1   ,aaa,bbb,ccc,ffffd,eee
1   ,aaa,bbb,ccc,ffffd,eee


6. SELECT ID,
    abc = (SELECT   
            ',' +Name  
    FROM temp1
    FOR XML PATH('') )
FROM temp1 GROUP by iD

Ouput:
ID  abc
1   ,aaa,bbb,ccc,ffffd,eee

In Step 6 we are grouping the date by ID.

STUFF( source_string, start, length, add_string ) Parameters or Arguments source_string The source string to modify. start The position in the source_string to delete length characters and then insert add_string. length The number of characters to delete from source_string. add_string The sequence of characters to insert into the source_string at the start position.

SELECT ID,
    abc = 
    STUFF (
        (SELECT   
                ',' +Name  
        FROM temp1
        FOR XML PATH('')), 1, 1, ''
    )
FROM temp1 GROUP by iD

Output:
-----------------------------------
| Id        | Name                |
|---------------------------------|
| 1         | aaa,bbb,ccc,ffffd,eee |
-----------------------------------

Answer 3

I did debugging and finally returned my 'stuffed' query to it it's normal way.

Simply

select * from myTable for xml path('myTable')

gives me contents of the table to write to a log table from a trigger I debug.