Concatenation problem in Dynamic sql query - sql

Question

I'm trying to concatenate the string with multiple variables and go for exec. Unfortunately I'm facing the conversion problem as:
Conversion failed when converting the varchar value 'Select #ExistingIds= CBSE_IX_J from ##tempPivot where EmployeeID=' to data type int.
My query is :
SET #ExecColumn = concat('Select #ExistingIds= '+#TSectionName +' from ##tempPivot where EmployeeID='+CAST(#TUserID as INT),'')
PRINT #ExecColumn
EXEC (#ExecColumn)

Answer 1

The "simple" answer is don't concatenate raw string values into your dynamic statement, and parametrise your code. This is a bit of guesswork, however, is far safer than the SQL Injection hole you have right now:
DECLARE #SQL nvarchar(MAX);
SET #SQL = N'SELECT #ExistingIDs = ' + QUOTENAME(#TSectionName) + NCHAR(13) + NCHAR(10)+
N'FROM ##tempPivot' + NCHAR(13) + NCHAR(10) +
N'WHERE EmployeeID = #TUserID;';
PRINT #SQL;
EXEC sp_executesql #SQL,
N'#TUserID int, #ExistingIds int OUTPUT', --guessed datatypes and that #ExistingIds is an OUTPUT
#TUserID = #TUserID,
#ExistingIds = ExistingIds OUTPUT;
Note: the fact that your variable is called #ExistingIDs implies you want to store multiple values in that variable. #ExistingIDs is a scalar value, it will only hold a scalar (single) value. If the query above returns multiple rows, only the value of from the last row will be returned. For example:
DECLARE #i int;
SELECT #i = I
FROM (VALUES(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(9))V(I)
ORDER BY I;
SELECT #i;
Notice that #i has the value 9, not '1,2,3,...,9'.

Answer 2

You would seem to want:
DECLARE #SQL nvarchar(MAX);
DECALRE #ExistingIds NVARCHAR(MAX);
SET #SQL = N'
SELECT #ExistingIDs = STRING_AGG(#TSectionName, '''')
FROM ##tempPivot
WHERE EmployeeID = #TUserID
';
-- Cannot have identifiers as parameters, so use `REPLACE()`
SET #SQL = REPLACE(#SQL, '#TSectionName', QUOTENAME(#TSectionName);
EXEC sp_executesql #SQL,
N'#TUserID int, #ExistingIds NVARCHAR(MAX) OUTPUT', --guessed datatypes and that #ExistingIds is an OUTPUT
#TUserID=#TUserID,
#ExistingIds=#ExistingIds OUTPUT;
In older versions of SQL Server, you need another approach for concatenating strings. For instance
SET #SQL = N'
SELECT #ExistingIDs = (SELECT #TSectionName
FROM ##tempPivot
WHERE EmployeeID = #TUserID
FOR XML PATH ('')
)
';