Unusual output format required in SQL

Question

I have a sql table in the format;

Name   Date         Value
ABC    1/21/2015    52
ABC    1/22/2015    12
ABC    1/23/2015    32
DEF    1/21/2015    78
DEF    1/22/2015    53
etc...

For compatibility with a legacy program I need to format a text file as follows:

ABC
1/21/2015,52
1/22/2015,12
1/23/2015,32
DEF
1/21/2015,78
1/22/2015,53

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Answer 1

One option is to create header rows for the result set using a UNION and then sort such that they appear at the top of each Name group. You can do this using a computed column which identifies these generated rows as being headers.

SELECT CASE WHEN t.Header = 1
       THEN t.Name
       ELSE CONCAT(t.Date, ',', t.Value)
       END
FROM
(
    SELECT DISTINCT Name, NULL AS Date, NULL AS Value, 1 AS Header
    FROM yourTable
    UNION ALL
    SELECT Name, Date, Value, 0 AS Header
    FROM yourTable
) t
ORDER BY t.Name, t.Header DESC, t.Date