Question

I have a table like this:

    | ID | X1 | X2 | X3 | .. | Xn |
    +----+----+----+----+----+----+
    | 1  | x  | '' | x  | '' | '' |
    +----+----+----+----+----+----+
    | 2  | '' | '' | x  | '' | '' |
    +----+----+----+----+----+----+
    | 3  | x  | x  | x  | '' | x  |
    +----+----+----+----+----+----+
'' = Empty string, not null

Now I want to know how many ‘x’ are in row 2 or 3 or n. Is there an easy way to achieve this?

Using MS SQL Server 2008

Answer 1

SELECT ID,
       (SELECT COUNT(*)
        FROM   (VALUES (X1),
                       (X2),
                       (X3),
                       /* ... */
                       (Xn)) T(X)
        WHERE  X = 'X') AS Num
FROM   YourTable