retrieving only 50 chars from a detail table

alt-088 · #1 (**permalink**) 01-25-12, 14:38

Hello everyone -

I have a detail table of comments. I need to grab the fist 50 characters from the comment field from this table. The kick is that I need to get the comments from all of the records in the detail table, as the comments might be less than 50 characters, so i need to pull the comments from the other comment records that apply to the master table record.

right now i have the comments in a join to the master table, but this is causing a few records to be returned....

I guess what i am looking for is a way to grab the comment value from the first record of the detail table.

thanks
tony

Wim · #2 (**permalink**) 01-25-12, 16:47

Try this:

Code:

SELECT Master.Id,
	LEFT((SELECT LTRIM(RTRIM(Details.comments)) + ' ' 
		FROM Details
		WHERE Master.Id = Details.MasterId
		ORDER BY Details.seqNr
		FOR XML PATH('')
		), 50) AS Comments
FROM Master
GROUP BY Master.Id ;

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