How to create a SQL Server function to “join” multiple rows from a subquery into a single delimited field? [duplicate]

Answer 1

In SQL Server 2005

SELECT Stuff(
  (SELECT N', ' + Name FROM Names FOR XML PATH(''),TYPE)
  .value('text()[1]','nvarchar(max)'),1,2,N'')

---

In SQL Server 2016

you can use the FOR JSON syntax

i.e.

SELECT per.ID,
Emails = JSON_VALUE(
   REPLACE(
     (SELECT _ = em.Email FROM Email em WHERE em.Person = per.ID FOR JSON PATH)
    ,'"},{"_":"',', '),'$[0]._'
) 
FROM Person per

And the result will become

Id  Emails
1   abc@gmail.com
2   NULL
3   def@gmail.com, xyz@gmail.com

This will work even your data contains invalid XML characters

the '"},{"":"' is safe because if you data contain '"},{"":"', it will be escaped to "},{\"_\":\"

You can replace ', ' with any string separator

---

And in SQL Server 2017, Azure SQL Database

You can use the new STRING_AGG function

Answer 2

In a single SQL query, without using the FOR XML clause.
A Common Table Expression is used to recursively concatenate the results.

-- rank locations by incrementing lexicographical order
WITH RankedLocations AS (
  SELECT
    VehicleID,
    City,
    ROW_NUMBER() OVER (
        PARTITION BY VehicleID 
        ORDER BY City
    ) Rank
  FROM
    Locations
),
-- concatenate locations using a recursive query
-- (Common Table Expression)
Concatenations AS (
  -- for each vehicle, select the first location
  SELECT
    VehicleID,
    CONVERT(nvarchar(MAX), City) Cities,
    Rank
  FROM
    RankedLocations
  WHERE
    Rank = 1

  -- then incrementally concatenate with the next location
  -- this will return intermediate concatenations that will be 
  -- filtered out later on
  UNION ALL

  SELECT
    c.VehicleID,
    (c.Cities + ', ' + l.City) Cities,
    l.Rank
  FROM
    Concatenations c -- this is a recursion!
    INNER JOIN RankedLocations l ON
        l.VehicleID = c.VehicleID 
        AND l.Rank = c.Rank + 1
),
-- rank concatenation results by decrementing length 
-- (rank 1 will always be for the longest concatenation)
RankedConcatenations AS (
  SELECT
    VehicleID,
    Cities,
    ROW_NUMBER() OVER (
        PARTITION BY VehicleID 
        ORDER BY Rank DESC
    ) Rank
  FROM 
    Concatenations
)
-- main query
SELECT
  v.VehicleID,
  v.Name,
  c.Cities
FROM
  Vehicles v
  INNER JOIN RankedConcatenations c ON 
    c.VehicleID = v.VehicleID 
    AND c.Rank = 1

Answer 3

Mun's answer didn't work for me so I made some changes to that answer to get it to work. Hope this helps someone. Using SQL Server 2012:

SELECT [VehicleID]
     , [Name]
     , STUFF((SELECT DISTINCT ',' + CONVERT(VARCHAR,City) 
         FROM [Location] 
         WHERE (VehicleID = Vehicle.VehicleID) 
         FOR XML PATH ('')), 1, 2, '') AS Locations
FROM [Vehicle]

Answer 4

Try this query

SELECT v.VehicleId, v.Name, ll.LocationList
FROM Vehicles v 
LEFT JOIN 
    (SELECT 
     DISTINCT
        VehicleId,
        REPLACE(
            REPLACE(
                REPLACE(
                    (
                        SELECT City as c 
                        FROM Locations x 
                        WHERE x.VehicleID = l.VehicleID FOR XML PATH('')
                    ),    
                    '</c><c>',', '
                 ),
             '<c>',''
            ),
        '</c>', ''
        ) AS LocationList
    FROM Locations l
) ll ON ll.VehicleId = v.VehicleId

Answer 5

I've found a solution by creating the following function:

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[JoinTexts]
(
  @delimiter VARCHAR(20) ,
  @whereClause VARCHAR(1)
)
RETURNS VARCHAR(MAX)
AS 
BEGIN
    DECLARE @Texts VARCHAR(MAX)

    SELECT  @Texts = COALESCE(@Texts + @delimiter, '') + T.Texto
    FROM    SomeTable AS T
    WHERE   T.SomeOtherColumn = @whereClause

    RETURN @Texts
END
GO

Usage:

SELECT dbo.JoinTexts(' , ', 'Y')

Answer 6

The below code will work for Sql Server 2000/2005/2008

CREATE FUNCTION fnConcatVehicleCities(@VehicleId SMALLINT)
RETURNS VARCHAR(1000) AS
BEGIN
  DECLARE @csvCities VARCHAR(1000)
  SELECT @csvCities = COALESCE(@csvCities + ', ', '') + COALESCE(City,'')
  FROM Vehicles 
  WHERE VehicleId = @VehicleId 
  return @csvCities
END

-- //Once the User defined function is created then run the below sql

SELECT VehicleID
     , dbo.fnConcatVehicleCities(VehicleId) AS Locations
FROM Vehicles
GROUP BY VehicleID