Query for comma-separated ids to comma-separated values

Question

I have 2 tables

Departments

ID  Dept
---------
1   HR
2   Accts
3   IT

Employee

I         


        

Answer 1

Looking beyond how you're storing your data, let me try to help you out.

Well, you're asking a lot of questions here. First, to split the data, you can format it as XML and use CROSS APPLY -- trick I saw a while back that didn't require built in functions.

That will convert your comma delimited string to a list of strings. You can then use FOR XML to put them back together.

Give this a shot:

SELECT
   E.Id, 
   E.Name, 
   STUFF(
        (
        SELECT ',' +  D.Department AS [text()]
        FROM  (
           SELECT A.[id],  
             Split.a.value('.', 'VARCHAR(100)') AS DeptId  
           FROM  
              (SELECT [id],  
                 CAST ('' + REPLACE(Depts, ',', '') + '' AS XML) AS String  
              FROM  Employee
          ) AS A 
        CROSS APPLY String.nodes ('/M') AS Split(a)) A 
        JOIN Departments D ON A.DeptId = D.Id
        WHERE E.Id = A.Id
        FOR XML PATH('')
        ), 1, 1, '') AS Departments
FROM Employee E

And here is the SQL Fiddle.

Good luck.