Need to Pivot String values in SQL server

Question

I have table with values, described as:

Occupation String	Name String
Developer	A
Developer	B
Designer	X
Coder	Y
Coder	Z

I need values in pivot format as:

Designer	Developer	Coder
X	A	Y
Null	B	Z

Can anyone help on this ?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

The basic PIVOT with ROW_NUMBER() will do things for you:

SELECT  [Developer],
        [Designer],
        [Coder]
FROM (
    SELECT  *,
            ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY Occupation ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) RN
    FROM #temp
) as t
PIVOT (
    MAX(Name) FOR Occupation IN ([Developer],[Designer],[Coder])
) as pvt

Output:

Developer   Designer    Coder
A           X           Y
B           NULL        Z

If the number of Occupations may vary then you need dynamic SQL:

DECLARE @columns nvarchar(max),
        @sql nvarchar(max)

SELECT @columns = (
    SELECT DISTINCT ','+QUOTENAME(Occupation)
    FROM #temp
    FOR XML PATH('')
)

SELECT @sql = N'
SELECT  '+STUFF(@columns,1,1,'')+'
FROM (
    SELECT  *,
            ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY Occupation ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) RN
    FROM #temp
) as t
PIVOT (
    MAX(Name) FOR Occupation IN ('+STUFF(@columns,1,1,'')+')
) as pvt'

EXEC sp_executesql @sql

Note: I have used ORDER BY (SELECT NULL) just to get some random ordering. Better use some actual field for this purpose.