Question

I have a table, call it TBL. It has two columns,call them A and B. Now in the query I require one column as A and other column should be a comma seprated list of all B’s which are against A in TBL. e.g. TBL is like this

1 Alpha

2 Beta

1 Gamma

1 Delta

Result of query should be

1 Alpha,Gamma,Delta

2 Beta

This type of thing is very easy to do with cursors in stored procedure. But I am not able to do it through MS Access, because apparently it does not support stored procedures. Is there a way to run stored procedure in MS access? or is there a way through SQL to run this type of query

Answer 1

You can concatenate the records with a User Defined Function (UDF).

The code below can be pasted ‘as is’ into a standard module. The SQL for you example would be:

SELECT tbl.A, Concatenate('SELECT B  FROM tbl         WHERE A = ' & [A]) AS ConcA FROM tbl GROUP BY tbl.A 

This code is by DHookom, Access MVP, and is taken from http://www.tek-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=4233

Function Concatenate(pstrSQL As String, _         Optional pstrDelim As String = ', ') _             As String     'example     'tblFamily with FamID as numeric primary key     'tblFamMem with FamID, FirstName, DOB,...     'return a comma separated list of FirstNames     'for a FamID     '    John, Mary, Susan     'in a Query     '(This SQL statement assumes FamID is numeric)     '===================================     'SELECT FamID,     'Concatenate('SELECT FirstName FROM tblFamMem     '     WHERE FamID =' & [FamID]) as FirstNames     'FROM tblFamily     '===================================     '     'If the FamID is a string then the SQL would be     '===================================     'SELECT FamID,     'Concatenate('SELECT FirstName FROM tblFamMem     '     WHERE FamID =''' & [FamID] & '''') as FirstNames     'FROM tblFamily     '===================================      '======For DAO uncomment next 4 lines=======     '======     comment out ADO below    =======     'Dim db As DAO.Database     'Dim rs As DAO.Recordset     'Set db = CurrentDb     'Set rs = db.OpenRecordset(pstrSQL)      '======For ADO uncomment next two lines=====     '======     comment out DAO above     ======     Dim rs As New ADODB.Recordset     rs.Open pstrSQL, CurrentProject.Connection, _             adOpenKeyset, adLockOptimistic     Dim strConcat As String 'build return string     With rs         If Not .EOF Then             .MoveFirst             Do While Not .EOF                 strConcat = strConcat & _                     .Fields(0) & pstrDelim                 .MoveNext             Loop         End If         .Close     End With     Set rs = Nothing     '====== uncomment next line for DAO ========     'Set db = Nothing     If Len(strConcat) > 0 Then         strConcat = Left(strConcat, _             Len(strConcat) - Len(pstrDelim))     End If     Concatenate = strConcat End Function