display more than one value using a SQL query - sql

Question

I am trying to display multiple authors per title in a single column. At the moment there a repeating rows, due to the fact that some Titles have more than 1 FirstName. Is there a form of concatenation that can be used to resolve this and display all the authors in a single filed and perhaps separated by a comma.
This is my current query:
SELECT
Submission.Title, Researcher.FirstName, Submission.Type
FROM
Submission
INNER JOIN
((Faculty
INNER JOIN
School ON Faculty.FacultyID = School.[FacultyID])
INNER JOIN
(Researcher
INNER JOIN
ResearcherSubmission ON Researcher.ResearcherID = ResearcherSubmission.ResearcherID)
ON School.SchoolID = Researcher.SchoolID)
ON Submission.SubmissionID = ResearcherSubmission.SubmissionID
GROUP BY
Submission.Title, Researcher.FirstName, Submission.Type;
This the output it generates:
[
this is the output I am trying to generate:
Title FirstName Type
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
21st Century Business Matthew, Teshar Book Chapter
A Family Tree... Keshant, Lawrence Book Chapter
Benefits of BPM... Jafta Journal Article
Business Innovation Matthew, Morna, Teshar Book Chapter

Answer 1

You may inclde the concantenation logic within a CROSS APPLY
SELECT
Submission.Title
, CA.FirstNames
, Submission.Type
FROM Submission
CROSS APPLY (
SELECT
STUFF((
SELECT /* DISTINCT ??? */
', ' + r.FirstName
FROM ResearcherSubmission rs
INNER JOIN Researcher r ON r.ResearcherID = rs.ResearcherID
WHERE Submission.SubmissionID = rs.SubmissionID
FOR XML PATH (''), TYPE
).value('.', 'NVARCHAR(MAX)'), 1, 2, ' ')
) AS CA (FirstNames)
GROUP BY
Submission.Title
, CA.FirstNames
, Submission.Type
;
NB: I'm not sure if you need to include DISTINCT into the subquery when concatenating the names, e.g. if these was 'Jane' (Smith) and 'Jane' (Jones) do you want the final list as: 'Jane' or 'Jane, Jane'?

Answer 2

You can do this in your application logic as well.
But if you want to do this with a query. You should be able do something like this:
SELECT DISTINCT
sm.Title,
STUFF(
(SELECT ', ' + r.FirstName
FROM ResearcherSubmission rs
INNER JOIN Researcher r ON r.ResearcherID = rs.ResearcherID
WHERE sm.SubmissionID = rs.SubmissionID
FOR XML PATH('')), 1, 2, '') AS FirstNames,
sm.Type
FROM Submission sm

Answer 3

You can use the below query to generate the o/p as you want from the o/p that you have got.
CREATE TABLE #temptable(Title VARCHAR(200), FirstName VARCHAR(200), Type VARCHAR(200))
INSERT INTO #temptable
SELECT 'Book1','Matt','Chapter' UNION
SELECT 'Book1','Tesh','Chapter' UNION
SELECT 'BPM','Jafta','Article' UNION
SELECT 'Ethics','William','Journal' UNION
SELECT 'Ethics','Lawrence','Journal' UNION
SELECT 'Ethics','Vincent','Journal' UNION
SELECT 'Cellular','Jane','Conference'
SELECT Title
,STUFF((SELECT ', ' + CAST(FirstName AS VARCHAR(10)) [text()]
FROM #temptable
WHERE Title = t.Title
FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE)
.value('.','NVARCHAR(MAX)'),1,2,' ') List_Output
,Type
FROM #temptable t
GROUP BY Title,Type