Are we actually going to get a string concatenation aggregate in SQL Server 2008?? I am so sick of having to write a UDF for every concatenation I want to do. I am well aware of all the methods available to do it now, and they are all junk, and the performance is horrible. I'm sure it is a challenging problem, and there are known pitfalls, but its time to address these.

The notion that it is the responsibility of the front end to do the concatenation is pure bs. You don't dump 10,000 rows to your report server when you only need to display 1000, just so you can concatenate one lousy column.

I want to be able to write:

SELECT CustName, SUM(ProductPrice), CONCAT(ProductName, [my separator], ORDER OVER ProductName ASC)

FROM Orders

And I'm not going to stop complaining til I get it! (-;

This is just the 'wrong' place for your compliant to have an 'real' effect.

Register you complaint/desire at:

Suggestions for SQL Server

http://connect.microsoft.com/sqlserver

And then get all of your friends and associates that also think it is a good idea to 'vote' on your request. (It is a 'popularity' contest'.)

Trust me, I have. I just don't see any reference to any such feature in the 2008 BOL CTP, and was wondering if it is included in the next version.

Spivey,

You can create it using CLR. See if this one helps.

Walkthrough: Debugging a SQL CLR User-Defined Aggregate

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165055(VS.80).aspx

AMB

Try this when you get a chance:

http://groupconcat.codeplex.com