Flatten SQL Server Table to a string - sql

Question

I have a table like:
ID | Value
----------------
1 | One
2 | Two
3 | Three
What I need to do is create a single string from these values, in the format:
'1: One, 2: Two, 3: Three'
I know how to do this using cursors, but it will be used as a column in a view, so it's not really a performant option.
Any pointers?

Answer 1

WITH T(ID,Value) AS
(
SELECT 1, 'One' UNION ALL
SELECT 2, 'Two' UNION ALL
SELECT 3, 'Three'
)
SELECT STUFF(
(SELECT ', ' + CAST(ID as varchar(11)) + ': ' + Value
FROM T
FOR XML PATH (''))
, 1, 2, '')

Answer 2

Have a look at something like
DECLARE #Table TABLE(
ID INT,
Value VARCHAR(20)
)
INSERT INTO #Table SELECT 1,'One'
INSERT INTO #Table SELECT 2,'Two'
INSERT INTO #Table SELECT 3,'Three'
SELECT STUFF(
(
SELECT ', ' + CAST(ID AS VARCHAR(MAX)) + ': ' + Value
FROM #Table
FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE
).value('.','varchar(max)')
,1,2, ''
)

Answer 3

SELECT STUFF((
SELECT ' ' + CAST(ID AS VARCHAR(2)) + ': '+ Value
FROM dbo.Table
FOR XML PATH('')
), 1, 1, ''
) As concatenated_string

Answer 4

DECLARE #ans VARCHAR(max)
SET #ans=''
SELECT #ans = #ans + str(id)+':'+value FROM table
SELECT #ans
Change the max to 8000 if your version of SQL doesn't support it

Answer 5

I would simply not do this in the database if at all possible. It's not designed for formatting data in a certain way; let the calling application handle that.
In C# (assuming data is an instance of SqlDataReader):
var l = new List<string>();
while (reader.Read())
l.Add(string.Format("{0}: {1}", reader[0], reader[1]));
var s = string.Join(", ", l.ToArray());