Question

Imagine a student and multiple professors
A professor has many students
The students go to class at the same time and date.

Table1

ClassName  | ProfessorName |StudentsPresent|ClassStartTime    |ClassDate  |ClassID
Philosophy | Stewart       |10             |8:00              |01/29/2011 | 1
Philosophy | Kyle          |10             |8:00              |01/29/2011 | 1
Religion   | Myke          |11             |8:30              |01/29/2011 | 2
Religion   | Nancy         |11             |8:30              |01/29/2011 | 2

How would I go about getting the following result

ClassName  | ProfessorName |StudentsPresent|ClassStartTime    |ClassDate  |ClassID
Philosophy | Stewart,Kyle  |10             |8:00              |01/29/2011 | 1
Religion   | Myke,Nancy    |11             |8:30              |01/29/2011 | 2

As we speak I am researching cursors.

Answer 1

Your table seems to be very denormalized. I’ve heard that cursors are a terrible thing within SQL Server and should be avoided if you can. With it how it is, put into a table called Schedule, this is how I might fulfill your request.

DECLARE @Schedule TABLE
(
    ClassName VARCHAR(50)
    , ProfessorName VARCHAR(50)
    , StudentsPresent INT
    , ClassStartTime TIME
    , ClassDate DATE
    , ClassID INT
);

INSERT INTO @Schedule
VALUES ('Philosophy', 'Stewart', 10, '8:00', '20110129', 1)
    , ('Philosophy', 'Kyle', 10, '8:00', '20110129', 1)
    , ('Religion', 'Myke', 11, '8:30', '20110129', 2)
    , ('Religion', 'Nancy', 11, '8:30', '20110129', 2);

WITH UniqueClasses AS
(
    SELECT DISTINCT
        ClassName
        , ClassStartTime
        , StudentsPresent
        , ClassDate
        , ClassID
    FROM @Schedule
)
SELECT
    ClassName
    ,   (
            STUFF((
                    SELECT
                        ',' + ProfessorName
                    FROM @Schedule Schedule
                    WHERE Schedule.ClassID = UniqueClasses.ClassID
                    FOR XML PATH('')
                ) , 1, 1, '')
        )AS ProfessorName
    , StudentsPresent
    , StudentsPresent
    ,  ClassStartTime
    , ClassDate
    , ClassID
FROM UniqueClasses