Simulating group_concat MySQL function in Microsoft SQL Server 2005?

No REAL easy way to do this. Lots of ideas out there, though.

Best one I've found:

SELECT table_name, LEFT(column_names , LEN(column_names )-1) AS column_names
FROM information_schema.columns AS extern
CROSS APPLY
(
    SELECT column_name + ','
    FROM information_schema.columns AS intern
    WHERE extern.table_name = intern.table_name
    FOR XML PATH('')
) pre_trimmed (column_names)
GROUP BY table_name, column_names;

Or a version that works correctly if the data might contain characters such as <

WITH extern
     AS (SELECT DISTINCT table_name
         FROM   INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS)
SELECT table_name,
       LEFT(y.column_names, LEN(y.column_names) - 1) AS column_names
FROM   extern
       CROSS APPLY (SELECT column_name + ','
                    FROM   INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS AS intern
                    WHERE  extern.table_name = intern.table_name
                    FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE) x (column_names)
       CROSS APPLY (SELECT x.column_names.value('.', 'NVARCHAR(MAX)')) y(column_names) 

Possibly too late to be of benefit now, but is this not the easiest way to do things?

SELECT     empName, projIDs = replace
                          ((SELECT Surname AS [data()]
                              FROM project_members
                              WHERE  empName = a.empName
                              ORDER BY empName FOR xml path('')), ' ', REQUIRED SEPERATOR)
FROM         project_members a
WHERE     empName IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY empName

With the below code you have to set PermissionLevel=External on your project properties before you deploy, and change the database to trust external code (be sure to read elsewhere about security risks and alternatives [like certificates]) by running "ALTER DATABASE database_name SET TRUSTWORTHY ON".

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data.SqlTypes;
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Server;

[Serializable]
[SqlUserDefinedAggregate(Format.UserDefined,
MaxByteSize=8000,
IsInvariantToDuplicates=true,
IsInvariantToNulls=true,
IsInvariantToOrder=true,
IsNullIfEmpty=true)]
    public struct CommaDelimit : IBinarySerialize
{


[Serializable]
 private class StringList : List<string>
 { }

 private StringList List;

 public void Init()
 {
  this.List = new StringList();
 }

 public void Accumulate(SqlString value)
 {
  if (!value.IsNull)
   this.Add(value.Value);
 }

 private void Add(string value)
 {
  if (!this.List.Contains(value))
   this.List.Add(value);
 }

 public void Merge(CommaDelimit group)
 {
  foreach (string s in group.List)
  {
   this.Add(s);
  }
 }

 void IBinarySerialize.Read(BinaryReader reader)
 {
    IFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
    this.List = (StringList)formatter.Deserialize(reader.BaseStream);
 }

 public SqlString Terminate()
 {
  if (this.List.Count == 0)
   return SqlString.Null;

  const string Separator = ", ";

  this.List.Sort();

  return new SqlString(String.Join(Separator, this.List.ToArray()));
 }

 void IBinarySerialize.Write(BinaryWriter writer)
 {
  IFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
  formatter.Serialize(writer.BaseStream, this.List);
 }
    }

I've tested this using a query that looks like:

SELECT 
 dbo.CommaDelimit(X.value) [delimited] 
FROM 
 (
  SELECT 'D' [value] 
  UNION ALL SELECT 'B' [value] 
  UNION ALL SELECT 'B' [value] -- intentional duplicate
  UNION ALL SELECT 'A' [value] 
  UNION ALL SELECT 'C' [value] 
 ) X 

And yields: A, B, C, D

2021

@AbdusSalamAzad's answer is the correct one.

SELECT STRING_AGG(my_col, ',') AS my_result FROM my_tbl;

If the result is too big, you may get error "STRING_AGG aggregation result exceeded the limit of 8000 bytes. Use LOB types to avoid result truncation." , which can be fixed by changing the query to this:

SELECT STRING_AGG(convert(varchar(max), my_col), ',') AS my_result FROM my_tbl;

For my fellow Googlers out there, here's a very simple plug-and-play solution that worked for me after struggling with the more complex solutions for a while:

SELECT
distinct empName,
NewColumnName=STUFF((SELECT ','+ CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), projID ) 
                     FROM returns 
                     WHERE empName=t.empName FOR XML PATH('')) , 1 , 1 , '' )
FROM 
returns t

Notice that I had to convert the ID into a VARCHAR in order to concatenate it as a string. If you don't have to do that, here's an even simpler version:

SELECT
distinct empName,
NewColumnName=STUFF((SELECT ','+ projID
                     FROM returns 
                     WHERE empName=t.empName FOR XML PATH('')) , 1 , 1 , '' )
FROM 
returns t

All credit for this goes to here: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/9508abc2-46e7-4186-b57f-7f368374e084/replicating-groupconcat-function-of-mysql-in-sql-server?forum=transactsql

For SQL Server 2017+, use STRING_AGG() function

    SELECT STRING_AGG(Genre, ',') AS Result
    FROM Genres;

Sample result:

Result

Rock,Jazz,Country,Pop,Blues,Hip Hop,Rap,Punk