Possible to concatinate column values into a string?

Question

Say I have the following table:

id|myId|Name
-------------
1 | 3  |Bob 
2 | 3  |Chet
3 | 3  |Dave
4 | 4  |Jim
5 | 4  |Jose
-------------

Is it possible to use a recursive CTE to generate the following output:

3 | Bob, Chet, Date
4 | Jim, Jose

I've played around with it a bit but haven't been able to get it working. Would I be better of using a different technique?

Answer 1

I do not recommend this, but I managed to work it out.

Table:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[names](
    [id] [int] NULL,
    [myId] [int] NULL,
    [name] [char](25) NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]

Data:

INSERT INTO names values (1,3,'Bob')
INSERT INTO names values 2,3,'Chet')
INSERT INTO names values 3,3,'Dave')
INSERT INTO names values 4,4,'Jim')
INSERT INTO names values 5,4,'Jose')
INSERT INTO names values 6,5,'Nick')

Query:

WITH CTE (id, myId, Name, NameCount)
     AS (SELECT id,
                myId,
                Cast(Name AS VARCHAR(225)) Name,
                1                          NameCount
         FROM   (SELECT Row_number() OVER (PARTITION BY myId ORDER BY myId) AS id,
                        myId,
                        Name
                 FROM   names) e
         WHERE  id = 1
         UNION ALL
         SELECT e1.id,
                e1.myId,
                Cast(Rtrim(CTE.Name) + ',' + e1.Name AS VARCHAR(225)) AS Name,
                CTE.NameCount + 1                                     NameCount
         FROM   CTE
                INNER JOIN (SELECT Row_number() OVER (PARTITION BY myId ORDER BY myId) AS id,
                                   myId,
                                   Name
                            FROM   names) e1
                  ON e1.id = CTE.id + 1
                     AND e1.myId = CTE.myId)
SELECT myID,
       Name
FROM   (SELECT myID,
               Name,
               (Row_number() OVER (PARTITION BY myId ORDER BY namecount DESC)) AS id
        FROM   CTE) AS p
WHERE  id = 1 

As requested, here is the XML method:

SELECT myId,
       STUFF((SELECT ',' + rtrim(convert(char(50),Name))
        FROM   namestable b
        WHERE  a.myId = b.myId
        FOR XML PATH('')),1,1,'') Names
FROM   namestable a
GROUP BY myId

Answer 2

A CTE is just a glorified derived table with some extra features (like recursion). The question is, can you use recursion to do this? Probably, but it's using a screwdriver to pound in a nail. The nice part about doing the XML path (seen in the first answer) is it will combine grouping the MyId column with string concatenation.

How would you concatenate a list of strings using a CTE? I don't think that's its purpose.