Question

I am trying to use dynamic SQL to do a pivot on a table for which I need to dynamically generate the column names.
My code is:

DECLARE @columns varchar(max)
DECLARE @query varchar(max)
SELECT @columns = COALESCE(@columns + ',[' + cast([Name] as varchar(max)) + ']', 
                 '[' + cast([Name] as varchar(max))+ ']')           
    FROM   dbo.Temp2

SET @query = 'SELECT * FROM dbo.Temp2 AS PivotData'
SET @query = @query  + 
'PIVOT (MAX(VALUE) FOR [NAME] IN (' + @columns + ')) AS p'                              

EXEC (@query)

My @columns function seems to work (though I can only ‘print’ 8000 characters to verify), and I have read that it is acceptable to do a MAX or MIN function on non-numeric varchars in SQL 2005, but when I run the query in its complete form I get the error message:

Msg 321, Level 15, State 1, Line 1
"MAX" is not a recognized table hints option. If it is intended as a parameter to a table-valued function, ensure that your database compatibility mode is set to 90.

I have checked the compatibility level and it is set to 90.
Can anyone offer any suggestion for how to get past this?

Many thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You are missing a space between PivotData and PIVOT.

    SET @query = @query  + 
    ' PIVOT (MAX(VALUE) FOR [NAME] IN (' + @columns + ')) AS p' 
//   ^--- HERE

As the result, the SQL parser interprets PivotDataPIVOT as a single identifier, resulting in a syntax error later on.