Comments on: SQL SERVER – UDF – Function to Convert List to Table

By: SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #028 | SQL Server Journey with SQL Authority

Sat, 11 May 2013 01:30:54 +0000

[…] UDF – Function to Convert List to Table Article contains UDF written for SQL SERVER 2005. It will also work well with the very big TEXT field. If you want to use this on SQL SERVER 2000 replace VARCHAR(MAX) with VARCHAR(8000) or any other varchar limit. It will work with INT as well as VARCHAR. It will convert the list to table. […]

By: madhivanan

madhivanan — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 12:41:37 +0000

What did you mean by NULL values?

By: sudhakar

sudhakar — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 23:58:54 +0000

Dear Pinal,

Could you please tell us how to retrieve the null values
Ex: 1 st row 12,43,12,65
2 nd row null
3 rd row 67,1,14
result set should be like 12
43
12
65
null
67
1
14

I have tried in below but in vain

DECLARE @commaSeparatedVal AS varchar(max);

SELECT @commaSeparatedVal = @commaSeparatedVal +’,'+ null + CONVERT(varchar,sourcelangid) FROM ProjectSummaries
PRINT @commaSeparatedVal

select cast(item as varchar) as sudha from dbo.udf_List2Table (@commaSeparatedVal ,’,')

By: varungaurv

varungaurv — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:58:01 +0000

thanks a lot pinal.

By: Yashpal Shah

Yashpal Shah — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:44:36 +0000

Hi RG,

I think your solution will fail in cases where there are values like 34,134,3,4
Please check and confirm.

Thanks,
Yashpal.

By: Michael L. Newman Jr.

Michael L. Newman Jr. — Wed, 25 May 2011 11:38:11 +0000

Good Post!

By: Gitesh

Gitesh — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 04:07:18 +0000

HI.
Is there any other way to do this same thing..? i mean any fast way without Loop.. coz if our string is too long then it effects performance.

By: Balázs Kisgadó

Balázs Kisgadó — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:27:25 +0000

Hello,

I am new to SQL and I am looking for a solution for the opposite situation. I have a table, but I need a string that contains each elemont of one column of my table.

Do you have a script for that?

Thanks,
Balázs

By: Pinal Dave

Pinal Dave — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:45:57 +0000

Hi,

Option 2 is better because function is not used in subquery.
Option 1 has a lot of overhead.
After all the best is one that pass testing.

Regards,
Pinal Dave

By: RG

RG — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:58:38 +0000

Hi Pinal,

I would like to know which method out of these two options is the best ,

(option 1)
select c1,
from t1
where t1.c2 in (select cast(item as int) from dbo.udf_List2Table(’123,453,34′,’,'))

or
(option 2)
select c1
from t1
where charindex(t1.c2,’123,453,34′) > 0

as per my understanding , option 2 will supress index usage and will slow the query down when data load is high on t1 table. it force index or table scans as well. Am I correct here or is there more to this ?

Thanks,
RG

By: David

David — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:49:48 +0000

Thank you for this! It really was useful for me, as I wanted to be able to return an Max and a Sum of a group for items that were being calculated, appearing in a single row.

I changed your function to have the Item be a float, and then used the convert function to pass the variables in:

Select Val1, Val2, Val3, Val4,
(
Select Max(Item) From dbo.udf_List2Table(Convert(varchar(20),Val1) + ‘,’ + Convert(varchar(20),Val2) + ‘,’ + + Convert(varchar(20),Val3) + ‘,’ + + Convert(varchar(20),val4) + ‘,’,',’)
) as MaxVal
From tbl

By: phani

phani — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:41:16 +0000

Thanks a ton Dave, I have got stupid extension for more lists of csv into single table :)
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.udf_Lists2Table
(
@List1 VARCHAR(MAX),
@List2 VARCHAR(MAX),
@List3 VARCHAR(MAX),
@Delim CHAR
)
RETURNS
@ParsedList TABLE
(
item1 VARCHAR(MAX),
item2 VARCHAR(MAX),
item3 VARCHAR(MAX)
)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @item1 VARCHAR(MAX), @Pos1 INT,
@item2 VARCHAR(MAX), @Pos2 INT,
@item3 VARCHAR(MAX), @Pos3 INT
SET @List1 = LTRIM(RTRIM(@List1))+ @Delim
SET @List2 = LTRIM(RTRIM(@List2))+ @Delim
SET @List3 = LTRIM(RTRIM(@List3))+ @Delim
SET @Pos1 = CHARINDEX(@Delim, @List1, 1)
SET @Pos2 = CHARINDEX(@Delim, @List2, 1)
SET @Pos3 = CHARINDEX(@Delim, @List3, 1)
WHILE (@Pos1 > 0 AND @Pos2 > 0 AND @Pos2 > 0)
BEGIN
SET @item1 = LTRIM(RTRIM(LEFT(@List1, @Pos1 – 1)))
SET @item2 = LTRIM(RTRIM(LEFT(@List2, @Pos2 – 1)))
SET @item3 = LTRIM(RTRIM(LEFT(@List3, @Pos3 – 1)))
IF @item1 = ”
BEGIN
SET @item1 = NULL
END
IF @item2 = ”
BEGIN
SET @item2 = NULL
END
IF @item3 = ”
BEGIN
SET @item3 = NULL
END
INSERT INTO @ParsedList (item1, item2, item3)
VALUES (CAST(@item1 AS VARCHAR(MAX)), CAST(@item2 AS VARCHAR(MAX)), CAST(@item3 AS VARCHAR(MAX)))
SET @List1 = RIGHT(@List1, LEN(@List1) – @Pos1)
SET @List2 = RIGHT(@List2, LEN(@List2) – @Pos2)
SET @List3 = RIGHT(@List3, LEN(@List3) – @Pos3)
SET @Pos1 = CHARINDEX(@Delim, @List1, 1)
SET @Pos2 = CHARINDEX(@Delim, @List2, 1)
SET @Pos3 = CHARINDEX(@Delim, @List3, 1)
END
RETURN
END
GO

select * from udf_List2Table(’1, ,3′,’a,b,c’,'x, ,z’, ‘,’)

By: SQL SERVER - Function to Convert List to Table Journey to SQL Authority with Pinal Dave

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 07:43:39 +0000

[...] February 10, 2007 by pinaldave Update : (5/5/2007) I have updated the UDF to support SQL SERVER 2005. Visit :SQL SERVER – UDF – Function to Convert List to Table [...]

By: SQL SERVER - Function to Convert List to Table Journey to SQL Authority with Pinal Dave

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:05:42 +0000

[...] February 10, 2007 by pinaldave Update : (5/5/2007) I have updated the UDF to support SQL SERVER 2005. Visit :SQL SERVER – UDF – Function to Convert List to Table [...]

By: Ad

Ad — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:48:09 +0000

I am relatively new to SQL, this code from Sudev gandhi works great, but can someone please explain how this works…

DECLARE @commaSeparatedVal AS VARCHAR(MAX);
SELECT @commaSeparatedVal = ISNULL(@commaSeparatedVal +’,’,”) + CONVERT(VARCHAR,[SKU]) FROM PRODUCT
PRINT @commaSeparatedVal

By: Sudev Gandhi

Sudev Gandhi — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:58:38 +0000

Hi Jayaram & HAGster,

I guess what you people need is from a table you need to combine all the values in single field e.g. from PRODUCT table you want list of [SKU] column in ‘,’ separated list. for that you can use following T-SQL snippet.

DECLARE @commaSeparatedVal AS VARCHAR(MAX);
SELECT @commaSeparatedVal = ISNULL(@commaSeparatedVal +’,',”) + CONVERT(VARCHAR,[SKU]) FROM PRODUCT
PRINT @commaSeparatedVal

Now you can fire

SELECT CAST(item AS INT) AS Example2
FROM dbo.udf_List2Table(@commaSeparatedVal,’,’)

ref: http://sudev.blogspot.com/2008/05/comma-separated-list-of-values-of.html

By: HAGster

HAGster — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:58:23 +0000

For Jamaram
Just in case your reading this Jamaram, I did a little work around to accomplish what you needed.
Declare a varable and select your comma separated list into in then run the function against the varable like below.

If this is any help then im glad, and im not very good at SQL so I have no idea if this is a messy way to do it etc.

Declare @yourlist char(800)
select @yourlist = (SELECT itemlist FROM tablename WHERE id = 1 )

SELECT item AS Example1
FROM dbo.udf_List2Table(@yourlist,’,')
GO

Kind Regards Guy

By: HAGster

HAGster — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:44:46 +0000

Was woundering the same myself Jayaram, did you work out how to use the function against SELECTED data?

Kind Regards Guy

By: jayaram

jayaram — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:25:13 +0000

Thanks !! It works fine with data passed as parameter…
But how to substitute a column name instead of the raw data in the UDF. I tried but in vain… I mean…

SELECT CAST(item AS INT) AS Example2
FROM dbo.udf_List2Table(select canview from table3,’,')
GO

gives the error message. Incorrect syntax near “select”

pL help.!