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Help with comma delimited sql column in resultset
Posted on 2004-04-21
I'm beginning to wonder if this is even possible. Here's what I'm trying to do.
Let's say I have two tables, customers and orders.
Customers
--------------
CustId Name
------------------------
1 John Doe
2 Jim Smith
3 Joey Tribiani
Orders
---------------
OrderId CustId Product Name
--------------------------
1 1 toothbrush
2 1 toothpaste
3 1 floss
4 2 computer
5 2 keyboard
6 2 mouse
7 3 tv
8 3 dvd player
9 3 vcr
What I want is a list of customers, with a comma separated field of all of the products they have purchased, like below:
1 Jon Doe toothbrush,toothpaste,flos
2 Jim Smith computer,keyboard,mouse
3 Joey Tribiani tv,dvdplayer,vcr
I know I can do this in a user defined function by passing in a customer id, looping through the products and returning the comma separated string. But I'm trying to find a universal way to do this so that I wouldn't need a udf for every instance. I think ideally and aggregate function would be a good solution, but SQL 2000 doesn't allow user-defined aggregate functions.
Any ideas?
Let's say I have two tables, customers and orders.
Customers
--------------
CustId Name
------------------------
1 John Doe
2 Jim Smith
3 Joey Tribiani
Orders
---------------
OrderId CustId Product Name
--------------------------
1 1 toothbrush
2 1 toothpaste
3 1 floss
4 2 computer
5 2 keyboard
6 2 mouse
7 3 tv
8 3 dvd player
9 3 vcr
What I want is a list of customers, with a comma separated field of all of the products they have purchased, like below:
1 Jon Doe toothbrush,toothpaste,flos
2 Jim Smith computer,keyboard,mouse
3 Joey Tribiani tv,dvdplayer,vcr
I know I can do this in a user defined function by passing in a customer id, looping through the products and returning the comma separated string. But I'm trying to find a universal way to do this so that I wouldn't need a udf for every instance. I think ideally and aggregate function would be a good solution, but SQL 2000 doesn't allow user-defined aggregate functions.
Any ideas?
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3
7 Comments
Create a function parametrized for CustId variable:
[...]
DECLARE @tmp varchar(2000)
select @tmp = COALESCE(@tmp + ',' + [Product Name], [Product Name]) from Orders WHERE CustId=@CustId
RETURN @tmp
And then use
SELECT CustId, Name, YourFunction(CustId) FROM Customers
[...]
DECLARE @tmp varchar(2000)
select @tmp = COALESCE(@tmp + ',' + [Product Name], [Product Name]) from Orders WHERE CustId=@CustId
RETURN @tmp
And then use
SELECT CustId, Name, YourFunction(CustId) FROM Customers
chaniewskim,
I am looking for a more universal way to do this, your solution would require different functions for every instance I wanted to do this. For example, in the future I might want to use this to get a list of products with each having a comma separated field of customers who purchased that product. I wouldn't want to have to write a new function to do that.
Nathan
I am looking for a more universal way to do this, your solution would require different functions for every instance I wanted to do this. For example, in the future I might want to use this to get a list of products with each having a comma separated field of customers who purchased that product. I wouldn't want to have to write a new function to do that.
Nathan
It's ugly, but you could use a dynamic query in a string, and run it using EXECUTE. This way you could make a function with parameters like
@table
@field
@selectCondition
then
DECLARE @tmp varchar(2000)
DECLARE @sql varchar(2000)
SET @sql = 'select @tmp = COALESCE(@tmp + '','' + ' + @field + ', ' + @field + ') from ' + @table + ' WHERE ' + @selectCondition
EXEC (@sql)
RETURN @tmp
@table
@field
@selectCondition
then
DECLARE @tmp varchar(2000)
DECLARE @sql varchar(2000)
SET @sql = 'select @tmp = COALESCE(@tmp + '','' + ' + @field + ', ' + @field + ') from ' + @table + ' WHERE ' + @selectCondition
EXEC (@sql)
RETURN @tmp
Active today
You might want to consider sticking with custom functions.
AFAIK the only way to make it generic is to use dynamic SQL, but you can't use dynamic SQL in a function. You can in a SP, but then you would have to cursor thru the main table to be able to call the SP for every row -- very, very, very bad for performance. A cursor should be a very last resort.
AFAIK the only way to make it generic is to use dynamic SQL, but you can't use dynamic SQL in a function. You can in a SP, but then you would have to cursor thru the main table to be able to call the SP for every row -- very, very, very bad for performance. A cursor should be a very last resort.
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