Question

Right bit of a simple question can I input nText into a pivot table? (SQL Server 2005)

What I have is a table which records the answers to a questionnaire consisting of the following elements for example:

UserID   QuestionNumber   Answer 
Mic        1                Yes
Mic        2                No
Mic        3                Yes
Ste        1                Yes
Ste        2                No
Ste        3                Yes
Bob        1                Yes
Bob        2                No
Bob        3                Yes

With the answers being held in nText. Anyway what id like a Pivot table to do is:

UserID  1     2    3
Mic     Yes   No   Yes
Ste     Yes   No   Yes
Bob     Yes   No   Yes

I have some test code, that creates a pivot table but at the moment it just shows the number of answers in each column (code can be found below). So I just want to know is it possible to add nText to a pivot table? As when I’ve tried it brings up errors and someone stated on another site that it wasn’t possible, so I would like to check if this is the case or not.

Just for further reference I don’t have the opportunity to change the database as it’s linked to other systems that I haven’t created or have access too.

Heres the SQL code I have at present below:

DECLARE @query NVARCHAR(4000)
DECLARE @count INT
DECLARE @concatcolumns NVARCHAR(4000)
SET @count = 1
SET @concatcolumns = ''

WHILE (@count <=52)
BEGIN
      IF @COUNT > 1 AND @COUNT <=52
            SET @concatcolumns = (@concatcolumns + ' + ')
      SET @concatcolumns = (@concatcolumns + 'CAST ([' +  CAST(@count AS NVARCHAR) + '] AS NVARCHAR)')
      SET @count = (@count+1)
END

DECLARE @columns NVARCHAR(4000)
SET @count = 1
SET @columns = ''
WHILE (@count <=52)
BEGIN
      IF @COUNT > 1 AND @COUNT <=52
            SET @columns = (@columns + ',')
      SET @columns = (@columns + '[' +  CAST(@count AS NVARCHAR) + '] ')
      SET @count = (@count+1)
END

SET @query = '
SELECT UserID,
' + @concatcolumns + '    
FROM(   
            SELECT
                      UserID,
                      QuestionNumber AS qNum
                      from QuestionnaireAnswers
                      where QuestionnaireID = 7
      ) AS t

      PIVOT
      (
      COUNT (qNum)
      FOR qNum IN (' + @columns + ')
      ) AS PivotTable'
select @query
exec(@query)

Answer 1

Just convert it to an nvarchar(MAX) – that will work just fine. FYI, you shouldn’t really be using ntext under 2005+ – it’s deprecated. Hope that helps.