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Asked: 2026-06-14T08:26:13+00:00

I have some unbalanced spreadsheet with structure ID Date Val Date Val Date Val

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I have some unbalanced spreadsheet with structure

    ID Date       Val Date       Val Date       Val
    1  2000/01/01 2   2000/12/31 1  
    2  1999/01/28 6   2001/02/01 5   2001/12/31 6
    ....

I want to rearrange it to something like the following

    ID Date       Val
    1  2000/01/01 2
    1  2000/12/31 1
    2  1999/01/28 6
    2  2001/02/01 5
    2  2001/12/31 6
    ....

Please advise me how I can do this in MS SQL Server? Thank you!

The sample data:

    create table tmp
    (
        id smallint not null,
        date1 Date,
        val1 smallint,
        date2 date,
        val2 smallint,
        date3 date,
        val3 smallint
     );

     insert into tmp(id, date1, val1, date2, val2) values (1, '2001-01-01',5,'2001-12-31',6);
     insert into tmp(id, date1, val1, date2, val2, date3, val3) values (2, '1999-02-01',3,'2000-12-31',2, '2001-05-01',3);

     select * from tmp

    1   2001-01-01  5   2001-12-31  6   NULL    NULL
    2   1999-02-01  3   2000-12-31  2   2001-05-01  3

However the following code will return

     select c.* from tmp cross apply 
    (
        select id, date1, val1 from tmp where date1 is not null
        union all
        select id, date2, val2 from tmp where date2 is not null
        union all
        select id, date3, val3 from tmp where date3 is not null
    ) 
     as c

    1   2001-01-01  5
    1   2001-01-01  5
    2   1999-02-01  3
    2   1999-02-01  3
    1   2001-12-31  6
    1   2001-12-31  6
    2   2000-12-31  2
    2   2000-12-31  2
    2   2001-05-01  3
    2   2001-05-01  3
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    From SQL Server 2005 onwards you can apply a function/subquery to each row in a source-data set.

    SELECT
  normalised.*
FROM
  yourTable AS tmp
CROSS APPLY
(
  SELECT tmp.id, tmp.date1, tmp.val1 WHERE tmp.date1 IS NOT NULL
  UNION ALL
  SELECT tmp.id, tmp.date2, tmp.val2 WHERE tmp.date2 IS NOT NULL
  UNION ALL
  SELECT tmp.id, tmp.date3, tmp.val3 WHERE tmp.date3 IS NOT NULL
)
  AS normalised

    Previous to Sql Server 2005, you can do this as three separate queries unioned together.

      SELECT id, date1, val1 FROM yourTable WHERE date1 IS NOT NULL
  UNION ALL
  SELECT id, date2, val2 FROM yourTable WHERE date2 IS NOT NULL
  UNION ALL
  SELECT id, date3, val3 FROM yourTable WHERE date3 IS NOT NULL
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