SQL Help: Select statement Concatenate a One to Many relationship

Question

For example I have two tables. The first table is student while the second table are the courses that the a student is taking. How can I use a select statement so that I can

Answer 1

Assuming you're using SQL Server 2005:

This should do what you're after - obviously replace fields as you need:

For demo purposes, consider the following two table structures:

Students(
  STU_PKEY Int Identity(1,1) Constraint PK_Students_StuPKey Primary Key,
  STU_NAME nvarchar(64)
)

Courses(
  CRS_PKEY Int Identity(1, 1) Constraint PK_Courses_CrsPKey Primary Key,
  STU_KEY Int Constraint FK_Students_StuPKey Foreign Key References Students(STU_PKEY),
  CRS_NAME nvarchar(64)
)

Now this query should do the job you're after:

Select  s.STU_PKEY, s.STU_NAME As Student,
        Stuff((
            Select  ',' + c.CRS_NAME
            From    Courses c
            Where   s.STU_PKEY = c.STU_KEY
            For     XML Path('')
        ), 1, 1, '') As Courses 
From    Students s
Group By s.STU_PKEY, s.STU_NAME

Way simpler than the currently accepted answer...

Answer 2

You can use a UDF that cursors through the related records and concats a return string together but this will be expensive - if you give it a go make sure your cursor is READ_ONLY FAST_FORWARD