VERY interesting! I will give this a whirl and see if it gets me to the happy place. Your example is very close to what I am trying...

this is a curse. I can't get the cursor to work either.

ALTER FUNCTION [dbo].[fetch_role_options]

(

@ROLEATTRIBID int

)

RETURNS NVARCHAR(MAX)

AS

BEGIN

DECLARE @Out NVARCHAR(MAX)

DECLARE @row NVARCHAR(50)

DECLARE c CURSOR FOR

(SELECT (CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX),roleattribopt_pk) + ',' +...

I guess I am going to have to use a cursor unless someone has a better idea.

any ideas on why this only returns a single record?

thanks a ton benyos.

However, after I created the function, it is only returning the 1st value, not the entire list of items that qualify.

I am getting "1|green" now....

thanks a ton! I will give it a whirl right now and see if I can finally put this puppy to bed.