concatenating single column in TSQL - tsql

Question

I am using SSMS 2008 and trying to concatenate one of the rows together based on a different field's grouping. I have two columns, people_id and address_desc. They look like this:
address_desc people_id
---------- ------------
Murfreesboro, TN 37130 F15D1135-9947-4F66-B778-00E43EC44B9E
11 Mohawk Rd., Burlington, MA 01803 C561918F-C2E9-4507-BD7C-00FB688D2D6E
Unknown, UN 00000 C561918F-C2E9-4507-BD7C-00FB688D2D6E Jacksonville, NC 28546 FC7C78CD-8AEA-4C8E-B93D-010BF8E4176D
Memphis, TN 38133 8ED8C601-5D35-4EB7-9217-012905D6E9F1
44 Maverick St., Fitchburg, MA 8ED8C601-5D35-4EB7-9217-012905D6E9F1
Now I want to concatenate the address_desc field / people_id. So the first one here should just display "Murfreesboro, TN 37130" for address_desc. But second person should have just one line instead of two which says "11 Mohawk Rd., Burlington, MA 01803;Unknown, UN 00000" for address_desc.
How do I do this? I tried using CTE, but this was giving me ambiguity error:
WITH CTE ( people_id, address_list, address_desc, length )
AS ( SELECT people_id, CAST( '' AS VARCHAR(8000) ), CAST( '' AS VARCHAR(8000) ), 0
FROM dbo.address_view
GROUP BY people_id
UNION ALL
SELECT p.people_id, CAST( address_list +
CASE WHEN length = 0 THEN '' ELSE ', ' END + c.address_desc AS VARCHAR(8000) ),
CAST( c.address_desc AS VARCHAR(8000)), length + 1
FROM CTE c
INNER JOIN dbo.address_view p
ON c.people_id = p.people_id
WHERE p.address_desc > c.address_desc )
SELECT people_id, address_list
FROM ( SELECT people_id, address_list,
RANK() OVER ( PARTITION BY people_id ORDER BY length DESC )
FROM CTE ) D ( people_id, address_list, rank )
WHERE rank = 1 ;
Here was my initial SQL query:
SELECT a.address_desc, a.people_id
FROM dbo.address_view a
INNER JOIN (SELECT people_id
FROM dbo.address_view
GROUP BY people_id
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1) t
ON a.people_id = t.people_id
order by a.people_id

Answer 1

You can use FOR XML PATH('') like this:
DECLARE #TestData TABLE
(
address_desc NVARCHAR(100) NOT NULL
,people_id UNIQUEIDENTIFIER NOT NULL
);
INSERT #TestData
SELECT 'Murfreesboro, TN 37130', 'F15D1135-9947-4F66-B778-00E43EC44B9E'
UNION ALL
SELECT '11 Mohawk Rd., Burlington, MA 01803', 'C561918F-C2E9-4507-BD7C-00FB688D2D6E'
UNION ALL
SELECT 'Unknown, UN 00000', 'C561918F-C2E9-4507-BD7C-00FB688D2D6E'
UNION ALL
SELECT 'Memphis, TN 38133', '8ED8C601-5D35-4EB7-9217-012905D6E9F1'
UNION ALL
SELECT '44 Maverick St., Fitchburg, MA', '8ED8C601-5D35-4EB7-9217-012905D6E9F1';
SELECT a.people_id,
(SELECT SUBSTRING(
(SELECT ';'+b.address_desc
FROM #TestData b
WHERE a.people_id = b.people_id
FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE).value('.', 'NVARCHAR(MAX)')
,2
,4000)
) GROUP_CONCATENATE
FROM #TestData a
GROUP BY a.people_id
Results:
people_id GROUP_CONCATENATE
------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------
F15D1135-9947-4F66-B778-00E43EC44B9E Murfreesboro, TN 37130
C561918F-C2E9-4507-BD7C-00FB688D2D6E 11 Mohawk Rd., Burlington, MA 01803;Unknown, UN 00000
8ED8C601-5D35-4EB7-9217-012905D6E9F1 Memphis, TN 38133;44 Maverick St., Fitchburg, MA