Question

I had the following physical table of “survey application” result. It’s not relation sort of speak the way storing the result.

As you can see the [84273x1x1] and [84273x1x2] are dropdownlist question which returning code while [84273x1x4] is a free text.

UserID; UserName; Email; [84273x1x1]; [84273x1x2]; [84273x1x4]; [84273x2x5]; [84273x2x6]; [84273x2x7];
1; "Name1"; "[e-mail]"; "A101", "A203", "Test answer bla bla"; "A102", "A201", "Test answer bla bla"
2; "Name2"; "[e-mail]"; "A102", "A202", "This is my comment"; "A101", "A203", "This is my comment";

Something that I found that:
[84273x1x1] is corresponding to:

84273 = SurveyID
1 = PageID
1 = QuestionID

On the Answer table, it has the following:

QID; Code; Answer;
1; A101; 1
1; A102; 2
1; A103; 3
2; A200; 0
2; A201; 1
2; A202; 2
2; A203; 3
5; A101; 1
5; A102; 2
5; A103; 3
6; A200; 0
6; A201; 1
6; A202; 2
6; A203; 3

On the question table:
QID; QuestionType; Title;
1; "DropDownList"; "How do you rate of GROUP-Q1";
2; "DropDownList"; "How do you rate of GROUP-Q1";
3; "Text"; "Comment of Q1";
4; "DropDownList"; "How do you rate of GROUP-Q2";
5; "DropDownList"; "How do you rate of GROUP-Q2";
6; "Text"; "Comment of GROUP-Q2";

The result that I would like to achieve is that pivoting:

UserID; Name; Email; Title; [Question1], [Question2]; [Question3]
1; "Name1"; "[e-mail]"; "GROUP-Q1"; "1"; "3"; "Test answer bla bla"; 
1; "Name1"; "[e-mail]"; "GROUP-Q2"; "2"; "1"; "Test answer bla bla"; 
2; "Name2"; "[e-mail]"; "GROUP-Q1"; "2"; "2"; "Test answer bla bla"; 
2; "Name2"; "[e-mail]"; "GROUP-Q2"; "1"; "3"; "Test answer bla bla"; 

Because this thing needs to be done in TSQL – 2005. When I looked at this, my first thought will be it has to be in Cursor.

Any thought guys?

Thanks

Answer 1

How about something like so:

Select P.UserId, P.Username, P.Email
    , 'GROUP-Q1'
    , A1.Answer As Question1
    , A2.Answer As Question2
    , P.[84273x1x4] As Question3
From People As P
    Left Join Answers As A1
        On A1.Code = P.[84273x1x1]
            And A1.QID = 1
    Left Join Answers As A2
        On A2.Code = P.[84273x1x2]
            And A2.QID = 2
Union All
Select P.UserId, P.Username, P.Email
    , 'GROUP-Q2'
    , A1.Answer As Question1
    , A2.Answer As Question2
    , P.[84273x1x7] As Question3
From People As P
    Left Join Answers As A1
        On A1.Code = P.[84273x1x5]
            And A1.QID = 5
    Left Join Answers As A2
        On A2.Code = P.[84273x1x6]
            And A2.QID = 6

Here’s another “more” dynamic solution (requires SQL Server 2005+):

;With UserRawAnswers As
    (
    Select UserId, 1 As QuestionID, [84273x1x1] As Answer From People
    Union All Select UserId, 2, [84273x1x2] From People
    Union All Select UserId, 3, [84273x1x4] From People
    Union All Select UserId, 5, [84273x1x5] From People
    Union All Select UserId, 6, [84273x1x6] From People
    Union All Select UserId, 6, [84273x1x7] From People
    )
    , UserAnswers As
    (
    Select UA.UserId
        , Right(Q.Title) As Title
        , Coalesce(DropListAnswers.Answer, UA.Answer) As Answer
    From UserRawAnswers As UA
        Join Questions
            On Questions.QID = UA.QID
        Left Join (Answer As DropListAnswers
            Join Questions As DropListQuestions
                On DropListQuestions.QID = DropListAnswers.QID
                    And DropListQuestions.QuestionType = 'DropDownList')
            On DropListAnswers.Code = UA.Answer
    )
Select P.UserID, P.Name, P.Email
    , UA.Title
    , Min( Case When UA.QuestionID = 1 Then UA.Answer End ) As Question1
    , Min( Case When UA.QuestionID = 2 Then UA.Answer End ) As Question2
    , Min( Case When UA.QuestionID = 3 Then UA.Answer End ) As Question3
From UserAnswers As UA
    Join People As P
        On P.UserID = UA.UserId
Group By P.UserID, P.Name, P.Email, UA.Title

Keep in mind that inherently the SQL language is not designed to deal with dynamic schema (i.e. dynamically generated columns). The only way to build dynamic schema is using dynamic SQL and if you hit that point you might as well do it in the middle tier or a reporting tool. Also, the denormalized structure really makes analysis difficult.