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Comma Separated Values with XML in SQL Server

There are situations when we want the data to be presented in the comma separated values rather than individual rows. For e.g. see the data in the pic given below:

The above shows all Enames with its deptno. But the employees for each deptno is represented as an individual row. Now if we want to display the same data with comma separated values given in the screenshot below:
In order to achieve this, we can use the XML Path function in SQL Server. This will help in generating the individual values and we can separate individual values with the help of comma or any other identifier. The query to generate the above resultset is:

In the above query we have used substring function so as to remove the "," which comes at the start of every name.

The above is a wonderful tool to rearrange the values in the form of comma separated values.

Comments

Unknown said…
sir if we want in sql server without xml then how we can do this?
August 16, 2011 at 1:34 AM
Rohit said…
Either we can use multiline table valued function or cursor
August 16, 2011 at 9:33 AM
Unknown said…
Sir, i am training at infotech, and trying to implement a search engine on a low level. can u tell me how to send a string to sql server,(eg ABC, DEF, GHI)as the "wherein" command (eg wherein ['abc','def','ghi'])
sir, i have tried it using dynamic sql, but i think it endangers the database due to problems like sql injection. i think the way u suggested in the post, can help me. but how to implement it in a stored procedure?
August 17, 2011 at 1:58 AM
Rohit said…
Dear Saurabh,

You can pass in the form of string in a procedure or function with some identifier to break the text in the logic. Otherwise you can also use the xml passing/table passing in the function to achieve the same.
August 17, 2011 at 10:00 AM
Unknown said…
thanks a lot sir.
August 17, 2011 at 8:56 PM
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