Question

Please see http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!3/fb107/3 for an example schema and query I want to run.
I want to use the STUFF and FOR XML PATH(”) solution to concatenate columns having grouped by another column.

If I use this method to concatenate multiple columnns into a csv list, am I guaranteed that the order will be the same in each concatenated string? So if the table was:

ID  Col1 Col2 Col3
1   1    1    1   
1   2    2    2
1   3    3    3
2   4    4    4
2   5    5    5
2   5    5    5

Am I certain that if Col1 is concatenated such that the result is:

ID Col1Concatenated
1  1,2,3
2  4,5,6

That Col2Concatenated will also be in the same order (“1,2,3”, “4,5,6”) as opposed to (“2,3,1”, “5,6,4”) for example?

This solution will only work for me if the index of each row’s value is the same in each of the concatenated values. i.e. first row is first in each csv list, second row is second in each csv list etc.

Answer 1

You can add an ORDER BY clause in the query within your STUFF function