Question

I’m using coalesce to return a string of names and when I run it as a single query, I’ve got no problem, but when I want to put it in a larger query, I get a little stumped.

Below is the bit that works:

DECLARE @return varchar(200)

SELECT @return = COALESCE(@return + ', ', '') +
                 CAST((select FileAs) AS varchar(30))
from Objects
where ObjectId in (select objectid from  dbo.Get_XML_Links(2335))
select @return

But I want to add the list of names into a larger query as follows:

select  det.Description,
        StartTime, 
        EndTime,
        THE STRING OF NAMES

from DiaryEvents de
inner join DiaryEventTypes det on det.DiaryEventTypeID = de.EventTypeID
where EventTypeID in (29,40)

I can’t quite see what I need to do (or if it is possible in this format!)

Answer 1

Thanks to a comment above and a very handy article on SQL Authority, I’ve worked it out as follows:

select  det.Description,
        StartTime, 
        EndTime, 
        (
        SELECT SUBSTRING(
        (select ',' + FileAs
        from Objects
        where ObjectId in (select objectid from dbo.Get_XML_Links(de.diaryeventid) where ObjectTypeSystemCode = 'CCT')
        FOR XML PATH('')),2,200000) 
        )AS Contacts


from DiaryEvents de
inner join DiaryEventTypes det on det.DiaryEventTypeID = de.EventTypeID
where EventTypeID in (29,40)