Question

I want to select columns as comma-separated values by doing something like:

select column1+','+column2+','+column3+','+coulmn4 from someTable

except if any of the columns hold null values i have to skip that column from adding comma
how to do this is SQL Server?
[All columns are of type varchar so no casting needed]

Answer 1

try

Test table

create table #testCol (column1 varchar(10), column2 varchar(10),
 column3 varchar(10), column4 varchar(10))

 insert #testCol values('a', null,null,'b')
 insert #testCol values(null,'a',null,'b' )
 insert #testCol values(null,'a','Z','b' )

Query

 select isnull(column1,'')+ case when column1 is null then '' else ',' end
+ isnull(column2,'')+ case when column2 is null then '' else ',' end 
+ isnull(column3,'')+ case when column3 is null then '' else ',' end 
+ isnull(column4,'') 
 from #testCol

Output
a,b
a,b
a,Z,b