Comments posted to this topic are about the item Concatenating Rows

Perhaps something in your requirements precluded this method but how about this:

DECLARE @var varchar(8000)
SET @var = ''

SELECT @var = @var + FieldName + '/'
FROM Table

SELECT @Var

the XML solution can also be:

select replace(
convert(
varchar(max),
(select name+',' as [text()] from fruit order by id for xml path(''))
)+',,,'
,',,,,'
,'')

or, if there is no need in deleting the last comma and converting the result from xml to string, just

select name+',' as [text()] from fruit order by id for xml path('')

To Modify:

DECLARE @var varchar(8000)

SELECT @var = ISNULL(@var + '/') + FieldName
FROM Table

SELECT @Var

However, this only works for one entity. For muliple entities the CTE recursion works fine, although it performs like crap. I only use this for throwaway SQL code generators where string handling in SQL makes sense.

For a scalable solution where it makes sense to do this in SQL, you need to turn the recursion into iteration. Most CTE recursion can be re-written to be iterative, allowing a set based solution.

Signature is NULL

Nicely written article but even the optimized solution causes a full cartesian product on the far right of the execution plan. That could explain it's performance problem.

--Jeff Moden

---

RBAR is pronounced ree-bar and is a Modenism for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
Stop thinking about what you want to do to a row... think, instead, of what you want to do to a column.
If you think its expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. -- Red Adair

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to post performance problems
Forum FAQs

Flip it around and delete the first comma...

with   
fruit as (
  select 'Apple'  as name, 101 as id UNION ALL
  select 'Banana' as name, 102 as id UNION ALL
  select 'Orange' as name, 103 as id UNION ALL
  select 'Melon'  as name, 104 as id UNION ALL
  select 'Grape'  as name, 105 as id 
)
SELECT STUFF((select ','+name from fruit order by id for xml path('')),1,1,'') AS CSV

--Jeff Moden

---

RBAR is pronounced ree-bar and is a Modenism for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
Stop thinking about what you want to do to a row... think, instead, of what you want to do to a column.
If you think its expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. -- Red Adair

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to post performance problems
Forum FAQs

this is mostly useful when you have to group rows together by one field and concatenate the corresponding values for each group. How would the solution look then?

SELECT STUFF((
SELECT ', ' + name
FROM dbo.FRUIT
FOR XML PATH('')
), 1, 2, '');

so as newbie in the top post quotes why not just use a select @var+ to concatenate.
You said it thats fine for 1 entity granted can see that.
But just move the code to a function that accepts the entity pk key and returns the concat string.
Then just call the function from a select thats listing the entities you want reporting?

somthing like,

select entkey, getmylist(entkey) from myentlist

neat one dystarry. And here's the solution for rows grouped by type_id:

declare @type_id int
declare cursor1 CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR SELECT distinct type_id FROM fruit

drop table #Temp
create table #Temp (region_id int, atext varchar(100))

open cursor1
fetch next from cursor1 into @type_id
while @@fetch_status = 0
begin
print @type_id
insert into #Temp (region_id, atext)
select distinct @type_id,
STUFF((SELECT ', ' + name FROM dbo.fruit where type_id = @type_id FOR XML PATH('')), 1, 2, '')
from fruit
--group by region_id
fetch next from cursor1 into @type_id
end
close cursor1
deallocate cursor1

select * from #Temp