Question : normalize a delimited list field

I have a field that contains a pipe delimited list here are 5 rows as an example:

0|3|
1|3|
0|2|3|
0|

I would like to concanetate these fields together so that instead of 5 rows I would get one like this:

0|3|1|3|0|2|3|0|

I need to do this in SQL (t-sql) as it will be part of a derived table as part of another query.

But how do I return one row from multiple?

Answer : normalize a delimited list field

consider EE as the table, while EE temp is used to compute the results:

create table ee ( d varchar(100))
set nocount on
go
insert into EE values ('0|3|')
insert into EE values ('1|3|')
insert into EE values ('0|2|3|')
insert into EE values ('0|')

-- insert int EE values ('0|3|1|3|0|2|3|0|')
go
create table EETemp ( d varchar(100), parts int , part int)
go
declare @rowcount int

insert into EETemp select d, len(d) - len(replace(d, '|' , '' )) , 0 from EE
set @rowcount = @@rowcount

while @rowcount > 0
begin
  update EETemp set part = 1 where parts > 1
  insert into EETemp select d,parts,2 from EETemp where part = 1
  set @rowcount = @@rowcount

  update EETemp set d = substring(d,1, charindex('|',d)) , parts = 1, part = 0 where part = 1
  update EETemp set d = substring(d,charindex('|',d)+1, len(d)) , parts = parts-1, part = 0 where part = 2
 
end

update EETemp set d = replace(d,'|','')

select * from EE
select d, count(*) from EETemp group by d


go
drop table EE
go
drop table EETemp


CHeers