How to Create a SQL Server Function to "Join" Multiple Rows from a Subquery into a Single Delimited Field

How to create a SQL Server function to join multiple rows from a subquery into a single delimited field?

If you're using SQL Server 2005, you could use the FOR XML PATH command.

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

It's a lot easier than using a cursor, and seems to work fairly well.

Update

For anyone still using this method with newer versions of SQL Server, there is another way of doing it which is a bit easier and more performant using the
STRING_AGG method that has been available since SQL Server 2017.

SELECT  [VehicleID]
       ,[Name]
       ,(SELECT STRING_AGG([City], ', ')
         FROM [Location]
         WHERE VehicleID = V.VehicleID) AS Locations
FROM   [Vehicle] V

This also allows a different separator to be specified as the second parameter, providing a little more flexibility over the former method.

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

Combine multiple results in a subquery into a single comma-separated value

1. Create the UDF:

CREATE FUNCTION CombineValues
(
    @FK_ID INT -- The foreign key from TableA which is used 
               -- to fetch corresponding records
)
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @SomeColumnList VARCHAR(8000);

SELECT @SomeColumnList =
    COALESCE(@SomeColumnList + ', ', '') + CAST(SomeColumn AS varchar(20)) 
FROM TableB C
WHERE C.FK_ID = @FK_ID;

RETURN 
(
    SELECT @SomeColumnList
)
END

2. Use in subquery:

SELECT ID, Name, dbo.CombineValues(FK_ID) FROM TableA

3. If you are using stored procedure you can do like this:

CREATE PROCEDURE GetCombinedValues
 @FK_ID int
As
BEGIN
DECLARE @SomeColumnList VARCHAR(800)
SELECT @SomeColumnList =
    COALESCE(@SomeColumnList + ', ', '') + CAST(SomeColumn AS varchar(20)) 
FROM TableB
WHERE FK_ID = @FK_ID 

Select *, @SomeColumnList as SelectedIds
    FROM 
        TableA
    WHERE 
        FK_ID = @FK_ID 
END

Multiple rows to one comma-separated value in Sql Server

Test Data

DECLARE @Table1 TABLE(ID INT, Value INT)
INSERT INTO @Table1 VALUES (1,100),(1,200),(1,300),(1,400)

Query

SELECT  ID
       ,STUFF((SELECT ', ' + CAST(Value AS VARCHAR(10)) [text()]
         FROM @Table1 
         WHERE ID = t.ID
         FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE)
        .value('.','NVARCHAR(MAX)'),1,2,' ') List_Output
FROM @Table1 t
GROUP BY ID

Result Set

╔════╦═════════════════════╗
║ ID ║     List_Output     ║
╠════╬═════════════════════╣
║  1 ║  100, 200, 300, 400 ║
╚════╩═════════════════════╝

SQL Server 2017 and Later Versions

If you are working on SQL Server 2017 or later versions, you can use built-in SQL Server Function STRING_AGG to create the comma delimited list:

DECLARE @Table1 TABLE(ID INT, Value INT);
INSERT INTO @Table1 VALUES (1,100),(1,200),(1,300),(1,400);


SELECT ID , STRING_AGG([Value], ', ') AS List_Output
FROM @Table1
GROUP BY ID;

Result Set

╔════╦═════════════════════╗
║ ID ║     List_Output     ║
╠════╬═════════════════════╣
║  1 ║  100, 200, 300, 400 ║
╚════╩═════════════════════╝

How do I concatenate strings from a subquery into a single row in mysql?

by using the GROUP_CONCAT() function and a GROUP BY call. here's an example query

SELECT 
   p.package_id,
   p.package_name,
   p.price,
   GROUP_CONCAT(pz.zone_id SEPARATOR ',') as zone_list 
FROM 
   package p 
LEFT JOIN package_zone pz ON p.package_id = pz.package_id 
GROUP BY 
   p.package_id

you should still be able to order by zone_id s (or zone_list), and instead of using LIKE, you can use WHERE zp.zone_id = 'Z1' or something similar.

grouping based on name

You can use XML stuff combination

select distinct c1,
STUFF((Select ','+c2    
from table1 T1
where T1.c1 =T2.c1    
FOR XML PATH('')),1,1,'') from table1 T2

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