How to Concatenate All Strings from a Certain Column for Each Group

How to concatenate all strings from a certain column for each group

If MS SQL 2005 or higher.

declare @t table([name] varchar(max), mark int)

insert @t values ('ABC', 10), ('DEF', 10), ('GHI', 10),
    ('JKL', 20), ('MNO', 20), ('PQR', 30)

select t.mark, COUNT(*) [count]
    ,STUFF((
        select ',' + [name]
        from @t t1
        where t1.mark = t.mark
        for xml path(''), type
    ).value('.', 'varchar(max)'), 1, 1, '') [values]
from @t t
group by t.mark

---

Output:

mark        count       values
----------- ----------- --------------
10          3           ABC,DEF,GHI
20          2           JKL,MNO
30          1           PQR

Concatenate strings from several rows using Pandas groupby

You can groupby the 'name' and 'month' columns, then call transform which will return data aligned to the original df and apply a lambda where we join the text entries:

In [119]:

df['text'] = df[['name','text','month']].groupby(['name','month'])['text'].transform(lambda x: ','.join(x))
df[['name','text','month']].drop_duplicates()
Out[119]:
    name         text  month
0  name1       hej,du     11
2  name1        aj,oj     12
4  name2     fin,katt     11
6  name2  mycket,lite     12

I sub the original df by passing a list of the columns of interest df[['name','text','month']] here and then call drop_duplicates

EDIT actually I can just call apply and then reset_index:

In [124]:

df.groupby(['name','month'])['text'].apply(lambda x: ','.join(x)).reset_index()

Out[124]:
    name  month         text
0  name1     11       hej,du
1  name1     12        aj,oj
2  name2     11     fin,katt
3  name2     12  mycket,lite

update

the lambda is unnecessary here:

In[38]:
df.groupby(['name','month'])['text'].apply(','.join).reset_index()

Out[38]: 
    name  month         text
0  name1     11           du
1  name1     12        aj,oj
2  name2     11     fin,katt
3  name2     12  mycket,lite

How to use GROUP BY to concatenate strings in SQL Server?

No CURSOR, WHILE loop, or User-Defined Function needed.

Just need to be creative with FOR XML and PATH.

[Note: This solution only works on SQL 2005 and later. Original question didn't specify the version in use.]

CREATE TABLE #YourTable ([ID] INT, [Name] CHAR(1), [Value] INT)

INSERT INTO #YourTable ([ID],[Name],[Value]) VALUES (1,'A',4)
INSERT INTO #YourTable ([ID],[Name],[Value]) VALUES (1,'B',8)
INSERT INTO #YourTable ([ID],[Name],[Value]) VALUES (2,'C',9)

SELECT 
  [ID],
  STUFF((
    SELECT ', ' + [Name] + ':' + CAST([Value] AS VARCHAR(MAX)) 
    FROM #YourTable 
    WHERE (ID = Results.ID) 
    FOR XML PATH(''),TYPE).value('(./text())[1]','VARCHAR(MAX)')
  ,1,2,'') AS NameValues
FROM #YourTable Results
GROUP BY ID

DROP TABLE #YourTable

Concatenate strings by group with dplyr

You could simply do

data %>% 
     group_by(foo) %>% 
     mutate(bars_by_foo = paste0(bar, collapse = "")) 

Without any helper functions

Concatenate multiple result rows of one column into one, group by another column

Simpler with the aggregate function string_agg() (Postgres 9.0 or later):

SELECT movie, string_agg(actor, ', ') AS actor_list
FROM   tbl
GROUP  BY 1;

The 1 in GROUP BY 1 is a positional reference and a shortcut for GROUP BY movie in this case.

string_agg() expects data type text as input. Other types need to be cast explicitly (actor::text) - unless an implicit cast to text is defined - which is the case for all other string types (varchar, character, name, ...) and some other types.

As isapir commented, you can add an ORDER BY clause in the aggregate call to get a sorted list - should you need that. Like:

SELECT movie, string_agg(actor, ', ' ORDER BY actor) AS actor_list
FROM   tbl
GROUP  BY 1;

But it's typically faster to sort rows in a subquery. See:

• Create array in SELECT

Concatenate values that are grouped by a column

You have nothing linking your inner and outer references to [Table], and you also need to make the outer reference distinct. Finally you need to either have no column name within your subquery, or it needs to be [text()]

SELECT  [Code]
        ,[Ref]
        ,STUFF((SELECT DISTINCT [Value] AS [text()]
                FROM [Table] AS T2
                WHERE T1.Code = T2.Code -- LINK HERE
                AND T2.Ref = T2.Ref     -- AND HERE
                FOR XML PATH ('')
                ),1, 1,'') AS [Values]
FROM    [Table] AS T1
GROUP BY T1.Code, T1.Ref; -- GROUP BY HERE

As an aside, you do not need to use STUFF as you have no delimiter, STUFF is typically used to remove the chosen delimiter from the start of the string. So when you have a string like ,value1,value2,value3, STUFF(string, 1, 1, '') will replace the first character with '' leaving you with value1,value2,value3.

You should also use the value xquery method to ensure you are not tripped up by special characters, if you don't and you try an concatenate ">>" and "<<" you would not end up with ">><<" as you might want, you would get ">><<", so a better query would be:

SELECT  t1.Code,
        t1.Ref,
        [Values] = (SELECT  DISTINCT [text()] = [Value]
                    FROM    [Table] AS t2
                    WHERE   T1.Code = T2.Code
                    AND     T2.Ref = T2.Ref
                    FOR XML PATH (''), TYPE
                ).value('.', 'NVARCHAR(MAX)')
FROM    [Table] AS T1
GROUP BY t1.Code, t1.Ref;

---

ADDENDUM

Based on the latest edit to the question it appears as though your Value column is coming from another table, linked to the first table by Code. If anything this makes your query simpler. You don't need the JOIN, but you still need to make sure that there is an expression to link the outer table to the inner table your subquery. I am assuming that the rows are unique in the first table, so you probably don't need the group by either:

SELECT  t1.Code,
        t1.Ref,
        [Values] = (SELECT  DISTINCT [text()] = t2.[Value]
                    FROM    [Table2] AS t2
                    WHERE   T1.Code = T2.Code
                    FOR XML PATH (''), TYPE
                ).value('.', 'NVARCHAR(MAX)')
FROM    [Table] AS T1;

---

WORKING EXAMPLE

CREATE TABLE #Table1 (Code CHAR(2), Ref VARCHAR(10));
INSERT #Table1 VALUES ('A1', 'Car'), ('B2', 'Truck'), ('C3', 'Van');

CREATE TABLE #Table2 (Code CHAR(2), Value VARCHAR(2));
INSERT #Table2
VALUES ('A1', 'A'), ('A1', '-'), ('A1', 'B'),
        ('B2', 'CC'), ('B2', 'D'), ('B2', '-'),
        ('C3', 'F'), ('C3', '-'), ('C3', 'G');

SELECT  t1.Code,
        t1.Ref,
        [Values] = (SELECT  DISTINCT [text()] = t2.[Value]
                    FROM    #Table2 AS t2
                    WHERE   T1.Code = T2.Code
                    FOR XML PATH (''), TYPE
                ).value('.', 'NVARCHAR(MAX)')
FROM    #Table1 AS T1;

Can I concatenate multiple MySQL rows into one field?

You can use GROUP_CONCAT:

SELECT person_id,
   GROUP_CONCAT(hobbies SEPARATOR ', ')
FROM peoples_hobbies
GROUP BY person_id;

As Ludwig stated in his comment, you can add the DISTINCT operator to avoid duplicates:

SELECT person_id,
   GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT hobbies SEPARATOR ', ')
FROM peoples_hobbies
GROUP BY person_id;

As Jan stated in their comment, you can also sort the values before imploding it using ORDER BY:

SELECT person_id, 
       GROUP_CONCAT(hobbies ORDER BY hobbies ASC SEPARATOR ', ')
FROM peoples_hobbies
GROUP BY person_id;

As Dag stated in his comment, there is a 1024 byte limit on the result. To solve this, run this query before your query:

SET group_concat_max_len = 2048;

Of course, you can change 2048 according to your needs. To calculate and assign the value:

SET group_concat_max_len = CAST(
                     (SELECT SUM(LENGTH(hobbies)) + COUNT(*) * LENGTH(', ')
                           FROM peoples_hobbies
                           GROUP BY person_id) AS UNSIGNED);

How to use GROUP BY to concatenate strings in MySQL?

SELECT id, GROUP_CONCAT(name SEPARATOR ' ') FROM table GROUP BY id;

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/aggregate-functions.html#function_group-concat

From the link above, GROUP_CONCAT: This function returns a string result with the concatenated non-NULL values from a group. It returns NULL if there are no non-NULL values.

How to concatenate text from multiple rows into a single text string in SQL Server

If you are on SQL Server 2017 or Azure, see Mathieu Renda answer.

I had a similar issue when I was trying to join two tables with one-to-many relationships. In SQL 2005 I found that XML PATH method can handle the concatenation of the rows very easily.

If there is a table called STUDENTS

SubjectID       StudentName
----------      -------------
1               Mary
1               John
1               Sam
2               Alaina
2               Edward

Result I expected was:

SubjectID       StudentName
----------      -------------
1               Mary, John, Sam
2               Alaina, Edward

I used the following T-SQL:

SELECT Main.SubjectID,
       LEFT(Main.Students,Len(Main.Students)-1) As "Students"
FROM
    (
        SELECT DISTINCT ST2.SubjectID, 
            (
                SELECT ST1.StudentName + ',' AS [text()]
                FROM dbo.Students ST1
                WHERE ST1.SubjectID = ST2.SubjectID
                ORDER BY ST1.SubjectID
                FOR XML PATH (''), TYPE
            ).value('text()[1]','nvarchar(max)') [Students]
        FROM dbo.Students ST2
    ) [Main]

You can do the same thing in a more compact way if you can concat the commas at the beginning and use substring to skip the first one so you don't need to do a sub-query:

SELECT DISTINCT ST2.SubjectID, 
    SUBSTRING(
        (
            SELECT ','+ST1.StudentName  AS [text()]
            FROM dbo.Students ST1
            WHERE ST1.SubjectID = ST2.SubjectID
            ORDER BY ST1.SubjectID
            FOR XML PATH (''), TYPE
        ).value('text()[1]','nvarchar(max)'), 2, 1000) [Students]
FROM dbo.Students ST2

---

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