Rows into Columns - remove duplicates and variable rows

  • late edit.. title should say variable columns

    Hi Folks

    Thanks to the excellent Cross tabs article by Jeff Moden [/url] I managed to transpose rows into columns.

    ;WITH

    ctePreAgg AS

    (

    select top 500 act_reference "ActivityRef",

    row_number() over (partition by act_reference order by act_reference) as rowno,

    t3.s_initials "Initials"

    from mytablestuff

    order by act_reference

    )

    SELECT ActivityRef,

    max (case when rowno=1 then Initials else null end) as Col1,

    max (case when rowno=2 then Initials else null end) as Col2,

    max (case when rowno=3 then Initials else null end) as Col3,

    max (case when rowno=4 then Initials else null end) as Col4,

    max (case when rowno=5 then Initials else null end) as Col5,

    max (case when rowno=6 then Initials else null end) as Col6

    from ctePreAgg

    group by ActivityRef

    order by ActivityRef

    brings back something like this..

    ActivityRef,col1,col2,col3,col4,col5,col6

    Ag-4xYSYSYSYSNULLNULLNULLNULL

    Ag-6xYSYSBLBLNULLNULLNULLNULL

    Ap-1xKWKWKWKWNULLNULLNULLNULL

    At-2x SASSASCWCWNULLNULLNULLNULL

    At-3x SASSASCWCWNULLNULLNULLNULL

    But what I would love to do next is take each of the above rows - and return the initials either in one column with all the nulls and duplicate values removed, separated by a comma ..

    ref, initials

    Ag-4xYS

    Ag-6xYS,BL

    Ap-1xKW

    At-2x SAS,CW

    At-3x SAS,CW

    OR the above but using variable number of columns based on the maximum number of different initials for each row..

    this is not strictly required, but maybe neater for further work on the view

    ref, init1,init2

    Ag-4xYS

    Ag-6xYS,BL

    Ap-1xKW

    At-2x SAS,CW

    At-3x SAS,CW

    Make sense to anyone? Any help and guidance appreciated

    Cheers

    Les

  • Maybe you culd read Part 2 of the Cross Tabs and Pivots series. 😉

    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/

    Luis C.
    General Disclaimer:
    Are you seriously taking the advice and code from someone from the internet without testing it? Do you at least understand it? Or can it easily kill your server?

    How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help: Option 1 / Option 2
  • Luis Cazares (8/5/2014)


    Maybe you culd read Part 2 of the Cross Tabs and Pivots series. 😉

    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/

    I have read part two but couldn't see how it would fit this situation, but I can't claim to understand very much of it ..the further down the page I went the more lost I became :unsure:

  • Getting closer...

    I'm able to output...

    xg-14-A2-4xZS, ZS, ZS, ZS

    xg-14-A2-6xZS, ZS, BP, BP

    xp-14-A2-1bxLW, LW, LW, LW

    xp-14-A2-1xLW, LW, LW, LW

    xt-14-A2-2xSBS, SBS, CW, CW

    xt-14-A2-3xSBS, SBS, CW, CW

    but now I need to remove duplicates so it outputs

    xg-14-a2-4x ZS

    xg-14-a2-6x ZS, BP

    ;WITH

    ctePreAgg AS

    (

    select top 500 t1.a_reference "ActivityRef",

    row_number() over (partition by t1.a_reference order by t1.a_reference) as rowno,

    t3.s_initials "Initials"

    from mystuff), otherstuff as

    (SELECT ActivityRef,

    max (case when rowno=1 then Initials else null end) as Col1,

    max (case when rowno=2 then Initials else null end) as Col2,

    max (case when rowno=3 then Initials else null end) as Col3,

    max (case when rowno=4 then Initials else null end) as Col4,

    max (case when rowno=5 then Initials else null end) as Col5,

    max (case when rowno=6 then Initials else null end) as Col6,

    max (case when rowno=7 then Initials else null end) as Col7,

    max (case when rowno=8 then Initials else null end) as Col8

    from ctePreAgg

    group by ActivityRef)

    select ActivityRef, mergedstuff=stuff (coalesce(', '+ rtrim(col1), '')

    + coalesce(', ' + (rtrim(col2)), '')

    + coalesce(', ' + (rtrim(col3)), '')

    + coalesce(', ' + (rtrim(col4)), '')

    + coalesce(', ' + (rtrim(col5)), ''),1,2,'')

    from otherstuff

    group by ActivityRef, col1, col2, col3, col4, col5

    order by ActivityRef

  • One option is to use group by inside your ctePreAgg, the other is to change ROW_NUMBER to DENSE_RANK.

    Luis C.
    General Disclaimer:
    Are you seriously taking the advice and code from someone from the internet without testing it? Do you at least understand it? Or can it easily kill your server?

    How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help: Option 1 / Option 2
  • That did it, thanks Luis

  • I don't think you need to go thru all that. Just modify the original query to get what you need. Not a lot of details, but something like this should do it:

    ;WITH

    ctePreAgg AS

    (

    select top (500) act_reference "ActivityRef",

    row_number() over (partition by act_reference order by act_reference) as rowno,

    s_initials "Initials"

    from (

    select distinct act_reference, s_initials

    from (

    select top (500) act_reference, s_initials

    from base_table

    ) as derived_1

    where s_initials is not null

    ) as derived_2

    order by act_reference

    )

    SELECT ActivityRef,

    SUBSTRING(

    max (case when rowno=1 then ',' + Initials else '' end) +

    max (case when rowno=2 then ',' + Initials else '' end) +

    max (case when rowno=3 then ',' + Initials else '' end) +

    max (case when rowno=4 then ',' + Initials else '' end) +

    max (case when rowno=5 then ',' + Initials else '' end) +

    max (case when rowno=6 then ',' + Initials else '' end)

    , 2, 200) AS initials

    from ctePreAgg

    group by ActivityRef

    order by ActivityRef

    SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".

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