SQL Query - Get multiple row results in one column with XML and STUFF()

Today I want to show you, how you can put the results of an SQL query into one column.

First I create a temporarily table for our data and fill some data in it:

CREATE TABLE #table (product nvarchar(255)) 

INSERT INTO #table
SELECT 'product-1' as product
UNION 
SELECT 'product-2' as product
UNION 
SELECT 'product-3' as product
UNION 
SELECT 'product-4' as product


Now we have our base table for our query. Here are the results of this table

Query:
select * from #table

Results:
product
product-1
product-2
product-3
product-4

Now we can see, we have 4 rows with our example products. Maybe we have a requirement to put all products in one row. This can be done by using the STUFF function and XML.
Here is the code:

select STUFF((SELECT distinct ',' + t.product
                    from #table t (nolock)
            FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE
            ).value('.', 'NVARCHAR(MAX)') 
        ,1,1,'') as allProducts

Now the result of this query is this:

allProducts
product-1,product-2,product-3,product-4


Hope you enjoyed this lesson.