Question

I’m trying to write a stored procedure in SQL Server that will eliminate some logic in my C# program. What I’m doing right now is the query is in a view. Then I’m making a list with the view.

List<MyView> listOrdered = new List<MyView>();

Here’s where it gets hairy. The query returns rows that are duplicates. I don’t want to delete the duplicate rows I want to combine them into 1 row. The rows are identical except for 1 column.

Example:

UID     Name     Age    Child
1       John     50     Sally
1       John     50     Steve
2       Joseph   42     Timmy
2       Joseph   42     Billy

So what I’m doing in C# is writing logic that says: (pseudo code)

foreach(item in list)
{
      if (UID != UIDCurrent)
      { 
          Build Row
          AppendRow to list
      }
      else
      {
          Append Child Column to Current Child Column
       }
}

Basically it gives me:

UID     Name     Age   Children
1       John     50    Sally, Steve

But instead of doing this logic in C# I would like to do this a stored procedure. So how I can I get SQL Server to combine the children column for each row instead of multiple rows.

If you need anything else to help you help me I will respond.

Oh guys believe me I don’t want to do it this way either. The Database I’m using is huge and complex and doing this with C# was sensible and works but I’ve been asked to turn my function that does this in C# into a stored procedure. I just want to see if this is even possible.

Answer 1

This should work if you want to do this in the database, though you should think about doing it in the front-end.

SELECT  UID,    
    Name, 
    Age,
    STUFF(
    (SELECT ',' + Child AS [text()]
            FROM parentChildren b
            WHERE a.UID = b.UID
    FOR XML PATH('')),1,1,'') [ChildConcat]
FROM parentChildren a