Question

My Sql query is,

Select CustomerName,ProjectID,ProjectDesc from dbo.projects

The Output is:

CustomerName                     ProjectID   ProjectDesc

---

A3 Consulting FZ, LLC.          277         A3
A3 Consulting FZ, LLC.          278         A3 - Chef
Anesthesia Business Consultant  279         Astra
ARI Network Services, Inc.      280         Mira

What i want is,the project desc should be in row as per the customer.

CustomerName               ProjectDesc     ProjectID   

---

A3 Consulting FZ, LLC.                   

                                A3            277    
                                A3 - Chef     278    

Anesthesia Business Consultant  

                                Astra         279

ARI Network Services, Inc.

                                Mira          280

Answer 1

I agree with the comments, this is not a Query issue, but a display issue. But if you really want to do it in SQL, try this.

Select a.CustomerName,'' as ProjectDesc,'' as ProjectID,
       a.CustomerName+'1' as SortKey
from dbo.projects a
join dbo.projects b on b.CustomerName=a.customerName
union 
Select '' ,b.ProjectDesc,cast(b.ProjectID as varchar(20)),
       a.customerName+'99'
from dbo.projects a
join dbo.projects b on b.CustomerName=a.customerName
order by 4

It will give you what you want, but it has an extra sort key column on the end that your front end will need to get rid of…

Here is another approach if you want to hide that key

select ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY SortKey) as RowNum,
       CustomerName, ProjectDesc, ProjectID
from
(
Select a.CustomerName,'' as ProjectDesc,'' as ProjectID ,
       a.CustomerName+'1' as SortKey
from dbo.projects a
join dbo.projects b on b.CustomerName=a.customerName
where departmentID = @DeptID
union 
Select '' ,b.ProjectDesc,cast(b.ProjectID as varchar(20)),
       a.customerName+'99'
from dbo.projects a
join dbo.projects b on b.CustomerName=a.customerName
where departmentID = @DeptID
) xx
order by 1

This approach will convert the ugly key into a series of sequential numbers. But just because this CAN be done in SQL, doesn’t mean it SHOULD be…