Question

query to group by one column with comma separated list for values from other column

Asked by: dblankman

I have a database with two data tables and a third table for linking.
Table 1: Research Sites
SITE_ID        SITE_NAME
1                   ARAVA
2                   ADULAM
3                    Avdat

Table 2: Research topics
TOPIC_ID      TOPIC_NAME
100                 Topic 1
101                  Topic 2

Table 3:  Link table

TOPIC_ID     SITE_ID
100                 1
100                  2
100                 3
101                 2
101                 3

I would like to end up with something like:

TOPIC_NAME     SITE_NAME
Topic 1                 Arava, Adulam,Avdat
Topic 2                  Adulam, Avdat

I know the join syntax but can't remember how to get the comma separated list

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Asked On
2009-11-08 at 07:15:57ID24881621
Tags

oracle

,

sql

Topics

Oracle 10.x

,

PL / SQL

,

Oracle CRM

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
3

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Answers

 

by: k_murli_krishnaPosted on 2009-11-08 at 08:58:07ID: 25770990

There is a built-in function available which will do the job for you to comma separate since you already know the basic join query. I cannot recollect name of this function now.

The other way is to do it in a procedure using a cursor and in the loop of cursor to get the comma separation.

This third way is to pass SITE_NAME column from Research Sites table to a function in which you will initiate 2 strings to '' and third to current SITE_NAME and swap values and in last step take sub-string to cut off comma in the last. This function you will make it part of the query just like the built-in function in first method.

As far as possible use built-in function i.e. do not reinvent the wheel since BIF are better performing since already optimized.

 

by: sdstuberPosted on 2009-11-08 at 10:58:22ID: 25771417

the built in function is LIST_AGG but it's only available in 11gR2 and higher.

For 10g you can build your own aggregate like stragg or use collect keyword and a function to split the table into a string or you can use aggregation through xml which doesn't require the creation of any user types or functions

  SELECT   t.topic_name,
           REPLACE(REPLACE(XMLAGG(XMLELEMENT("x", s.site_name) order by s.site_name).getstringval(), -- getclobval() for clob longer than 4K
                                                                               '<x>', NULL),
                   '</x>',
                   ',')
               site_names
    FROM   link_table l, research_topics t, research_sites s
   WHERE   l.topic_id = t.topic_id AND s.site_id = l.site_id
GROUP BY   topic_name

                                              
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by: Sharath_123Posted on 2009-11-08 at 11:05:29ID: 25771440

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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