Question

How to make multiple columns a string in SQL

Following a single column to string by @Alex Aza:

 select stuff(
    (select ',' + cast([colum_name] as varchar)
    from [dbtest].[dbo].[table]
    for xml path('')),
    1, 1, '')

How to use that to get all columns in a table a string?
I was thinking using dynamic SQL….

So for example

col1  col2 col3
---------------
1    7    13 
2    8    14
3    9    15
4   10    16
5   11    17
6   12    18

(this results something like: 1,2,3,4,5,6 )

How to make it Return:

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18

Answer 1

May be, you can try something like this.

SELECT STUFF(
                    (
                        SELECT  ',' + CAST([col] AS VARCHAR)
                        FROM
                        (
                            SELECT col1 AS col FROM [dbtest].[dbo].[table] UNION
                            SELECT col2 AS col FROM [dbtest].[dbo].[table] UNION
                            SELECT col3 AS col FROM [dbtest].[dbo].[table] 
                        ) alldata
                        FOR XML PATH('')
                    )
                ,   1
                ,   1
                ,   ''
            )

With sample data in the table like this…

query output would be as following: