The SQL STRING_AGG is one of the String Function, which concatenates the string expressions, and places a specified separator in-between them. Remember, this function will not place a separator at the end of the string.
The basic syntax of the SQL Server STRING_AGG function is as shown below:
SELECT STRING_AGG (String_Expression, Separator) FROM [Source] GROUP BY Columns
The list of arguments available for STRING_AGG is as shown below:
- String_Expression: Please specify a valid String Expression
- Separator: Use VARCHAR or NVARCHAR type. This function will use this separator in-between string concatenation
- Group By: This is an optional argument. Use this to perform Grouping.
For this SQL Server demonstration, we are going to use the below-shown data
SQL STRING_AGG Function Example 1
In this String Function example, we will concatenate the Last name columns data using STRING_AGG function.
-- SQL Server STRING_AGG Function Example USE [SQL Tutorial] GO SELECT STRING_AGG([LastName], ' , ') AS TextFile FROM [Employee]
OUTPUT
STRING_AGG Function Example 2
In this example, we are going to implement the Grouping along with the String_Agg function.
-- SQL Server STRING_AGG Function Example USE [SQL Tutorial] GO SELECT STRING_AGG([LastName], ' , ') AS TextFile FROM [Employee] GROUP BY Occupation
OUTPUT