Question

I’m using SQL Server 2005 and have the following T-SQL statement:

DECLARE 
    @MP VARCHAR(500)
SELECT
    @MP = COALESCE(@MP + ',','') + [Name] + ',' + '(' + [Political Party] + ')'
FROM [MPs]
WHERE [MPs].[Region] ='Wales' 


UPDATE myTable
SET [Names and parties] = 
(SELECT @MP
WHERE myTable.[Local Region] ='Wales')

This works fine and will populate myTable with @MP where ‘Wales’ is present; however if I run the statement again, this time with say ‘Scotland’, all the previously updated entries for ‘Wales’ will then become NULL in myTable.

I think I’m missing something here – using a different variable name for @MP for the second search doesn’t work.

Answer 1

I think you’re probably looking for this:

UPDATE myTable
SET [Names and parties] = @MP
WHERE myTable.[Local Region] = 'Wales'