Question

If I have several rows in a SQL db (access front end) with near exact data apart from one field (i know about normalization but Im happy to say this wasn’t my doing!), is there an easy way to select one row with the common data and show all values for the other field together? I can write a function do it programatically but Im wodndering of there’s an easier way?

eg

animal   brown   dog

animal   brown   cat

animal   brown   horse

as

animal   brown   dog, cat, horse

Answer 1

You can use STUFF() to get this:

select distinct col1, col2,
  Stuff((SELECT N', ' + col3 
         FROM yourtable t2
         where t1.col1 = t2.col1
         FOR XML PATH(''),TYPE)
        .value('text()[1]','nvarchar(max)'),1,2,N'')
from yourtable t1

see SQL Fiddle with Demo