Comments on: Convert table to CSV string in SQL Server

By: kuba

kuba — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:54:40 +0000

COALESCE(Name, ”) return Name or empty string if Name is null. check http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190349.aspx

By: ME

ME — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:33:02 +0000

What if the list has null value?

By: Gordon

Gordon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:53:19 +0000

Here’s a faster variant of the code you gave:

DECLARE @Csv NVARCHAR(MAX)
SET @Csv = ”
SELECT @Csv = @Csv + COALESCE(Name, ”) + ‘,’
FROM Animals
SET @Csv = SUBSTRING(@Csv 1, LEN(@Csv) – 1)
SELECT @Csv

…and another even faster, albeit hacky variant:
DECLARE @Csv NVARCHAR(MAX)
SELECT @Csv =
(
SELECT COALESCE(Name, ”) + ‘,’
FROM Animal
FOR XML PATH(”)
)
SET @Csv = SUBSTRING(@Csv, 1, LEN(@Csv) – 1)
SELECT @Csv

(I’m using SQL Server 2005)

By: Kyle

Kyle — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:39:54 +0000

SUUUUPER handy, I never would have thought of that. Thanks a lot.

Amanda: I too need a list of ints so I’ve modified it a bit to turn the ints into strings
select @csv = coalesce(@csv + ‘, ‘, ”) + LTRIM(STR(AnimalID)) from Animals

By: Amanda

Amanda — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:53:09 +0000

I could only create a list of varchar elements, what about a list of int?

By: nbnew25

nbnew25 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:27:51 +0000

Thank you very much.
It very good ^^

By: waqar mir

waqar mir — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:29:26 +0000

wow … i was looking for this ….:)
thanks

By: Facundo Báez

Facundo Báez — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:22:11 +0000

Good Post! Thanks

By: Jayasabari

Jayasabari — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:33:33 +0000

Ya it’s working…….

Thanks

By: Mark Paulsen

Mark Paulsen — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:33:03 +0000

Thank you very much for your post! This is a very clean way to convert the data in a table column into a single string.

For others reviewing this post, note that the string being appended to @csv above -> ‘, ‘, ” is:
1) a single quote
2) a comma
3) a space
4) a single quote
5) a comma
6) a space
7) two single quotes

NOTE: single quotes are used to delimit strings in SQL