Pivoting a table in SQL Server 2005 to contain same column multiple times

Question

I need to pivot the following table named tblGameRoleName - ``` Game Role Name VolleyBall Coach Sujatha VolleyBall Player Rajendran VolleyBall Player Juno VolleyBall Player Indira VolleyBall Player Ganesh VolleyBall Player Vasanth Tennis Coach Rajeshkumar Tennis Player Vivek Tennis Player Rubala ``` to the following table which has the 'Player' column multiple times - ``` Game Coach Player1 Player2 Player3 Player4 Player5 VolleyBall Sujatha Rajendran Juno Indira Ganesh Vasanth Tennis Rajeshkumar Vivek Rubala NULL NULL NULL ``` The problem is that the number of 'players' can increase for different 'games' and the result table should show all the players for all the games. For example - If I add the following 'cricket' team to this table - ``` Cricket Coach Gary Cricket Player Viru Cricket Player Gauti Cricket Player Sachin Cricket Player Mahi Cricket Player Yuvi Cricket Player Suresh Cricket Player Virat Cricket Player Bhajji Cricket Player Zaheer Cricket Player Ishant Cricket Player A…

Accepted Answer

This may be easier in a front end reporting/display application but for sql you need to perform a dynamic pivot. But since the columns are aliased by a sequential player number and the specific players vary by game you can't use the typcial dynamic sql examples.

Here is one way to do it:

sample data

```
set ansi_warnings off
set nocount on
create table #t (Game varchar(20), Role varchar(15), [Name] varchar(20))
insert #t
          select 'VolleyBall', 'Coach', 'Sujatha'
union all select 'VolleyBall', 'Player', 'Rajendran'
union all select 'VolleyBall', 'Player', 'Juno'
union all select 'VolleyBall', 'Player', 'Indira'
union all select 'VolleyBall', 'Player', 'Ganesh'
union all select 'VolleyBall', 'Player', 'Vasanth'
union all select 'Tennis', 'Coach', 'Rajeshkumar'
union all select 'Tennis', 'Player', 'Vivek'
union all select 'Tennis', 'Player', 'Rubala'
union all select 'Cricket', 'Coach', 'Gary'
union all select 'Cricket', 'Player', 'Viru'
union all select 'Cricket', 'Player', 'Gauti'
union all select 'Cricket', 'Player', 'Sachin'
union all select 'Cricket', 'Player', 'Mahi'
union all select 'Cricket', 'Player', 'Yuvi'
union all select 'Cricket', 'Player', 'Suresh'
union all select 'Cricket', 'Player', 'Virat'
union all select 'Cricket', 'Player', 'Bhajji'
union all select 'Cricket', 'Player', 'Zaheer'
union all select 'Cricket', 'Player', 'Ishant'
union all select 'Cricket', 'Player', 'Ashish'
```

create dynamic SELECT and PIVOT clauses and the EXEC'd statement

```
declare @max int
select top 1 @max = count(*)
from #t 
where role = 'player' 
group by game 
order by count(*) desc

declare @sel varchar(2000)
       ,@piv varchar(2000)

;with nos (n) as (select 1 union all select n+1 from nos where n < @max)
select @sel = coalesce(@sel + ', ' 
       + 'max([' + convert(varchar(2), n) + ']) as player' + convert(varchar(2), n)
       , 'max([' + convert(varchar(2), n) + ']) as player' + convert(varchar(2), n)
       )

,@piv = coalesce(@piv + ',[' + convert(varchar(2), n) + ']', '[' + convert(varchar(2), n) + ']')
from   nos
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

exec('
select p.game
       ,max(p.coach) as coach
       ,' + @sel + '
from   (
       select game
              ,case when role = ''coach'' then [name] end as coach
              ,case when role = ''player'' then [name] end as player
              ,row_number() over (partition by game, role order by name) as seq
       from   #t
       ) d
pivot (max(player) for seq in (' + @piv + ')) p
group by p.game
')

go
drop table #t
```

OUTPUT:

```
game                 coach                player1              player2              player3              player4              player5              player6              player7              player8              player9              player10             player11
-------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- --------------------
Cricket              Gary                 Ashish               Bhajji               Gauti                Ishant               Mahi                 Sachin               Suresh               Virat                Viru                 Yuvi                 Zaheer
Tennis               Rajeshkumar          Rubala               Vivek                NULL                 NULL                 NULL                 NULL                 NULL                 NULL                 NULL                 NULL                 NULL
VolleyBall           Sujatha              Ganesh               Indira               Juno                 Rajendran            Vasanth              NULL                 NULL                 NULL                 NULL                 NULL                 NULL
```

Pivoting a table in SQL Server 2005 to contain same column multiple times

Solution

Problem