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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T14:59:00+00:00

I have a bit of an interesting problem where I need to create an

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I have a bit of an interesting problem where I need to create an Excel data dump from some data in the database, but rather than it being something simple I have some complex data to merge, below is an example of the data that I have to deal with.

TblGeneralInfo

RecordId|Record Name  |Date      |Cost
1       |Test Entry  | 1/1/2010 |2.0
2       |Test Entry2 | 1/1/2010 |20.25

TblRandomInfo

RecordId |QuestionName   | Answer
1        |Your Name?     | Bob
1        |Your Title?    | The Builder
2        |Favorite Movie | The Matrix
2        |Favorite Car   | Mustang

What I need in the end is the following

RecordId|Record Name |Date      |Cost  |              |            |              |
1      |Test Entry  | 1/1/2010 |2.0   |Your Name?    | Bob        | Your Title?  | The Builder
2      |Test Entry2 | 1/1/2010 |20.25 |Favorite Move | The Matrix | Favorite Car | Mustang

Now I’m using SQL Server 2005 for the reporting and ASP.NET 3.5 (C#) for the application. I’m looking for the best way to do this. The number of items in “tblRandomInfo” is variable, and can have as many as 20-30 Q/A pairs per record. I cannot easily do a pivot, even a dynamic pivot due to the nature of the data.

Edit

A solution is valid either on the SQL Server or C# side. But note that information in tblRandomInfo can contain line breaks.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Is the issue that you are trying to create a T-SQL query that will make a table like your desired output?

    I’m sure it can be done, but why not create the output in the c# application? The easiest thing is to write out a csv.

    1. pull TblGeneralInfo records
    2. pull TblRandomInfo records
    3. for each record in TblGeneralInfo write RecordId, RecordName, Date, and Cost
    4. for each record in TblRandomInfo that has a RecordId matching the TbGeneralInfo record, write QuestionName and Answer
    5. newline

    Of course, you can do this with interop, as well, as long as you have Excel installed on the server, but that adds complexity with rather little benefit over the csv.

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