Convert Rows to columns using 'Pivot' in SQL Server

I've achieved the same thing before by using subqueries. So if your original table was called StoreCountsByWeek, and you had a separate table that listed the Store IDs, then it would look like this:

SELECT StoreID, 
    Week1=(SELECT ISNULL(SUM(xCount),0) FROM StoreCountsByWeek WHERE StoreCountsByWeek.StoreID=Store.StoreID AND Week=1),
    Week2=(SELECT ISNULL(SUM(xCount),0) FROM StoreCountsByWeek WHERE StoreCountsByWeek.StoreID=Store.StoreID AND Week=2),
    Week3=(SELECT ISNULL(SUM(xCount),0) FROM StoreCountsByWeek WHERE StoreCountsByWeek.StoreID=Store.StoreID AND Week=3)
FROM Store
ORDER BY StoreID

One advantage to this method is that the syntax is more clear and it makes it easier to join to other tables to pull other fields into the results too.

My anecdotal results are that running this query over a couple of thousand rows completed in less than one second, and I actually had 7 subqueries. But as noted in the comments, it is more computationally expensive to do it this way, so be careful about using this method if you expect it to run on large amounts of data .


This is for dynamic # of weeks.

Full example here:SQL Dynamic Pivot

DECLARE @DynamicPivotQuery AS NVARCHAR(MAX)
DECLARE @ColumnName AS NVARCHAR(MAX)

--Get distinct values of the PIVOT Column 
SELECT @ColumnName= ISNULL(@ColumnName + ',','') + QUOTENAME(Week)
FROM (SELECT DISTINCT Week FROM #StoreSales) AS Weeks

--Prepare the PIVOT query using the dynamic 
SET @DynamicPivotQuery = 
  N'SELECT Store, ' + @ColumnName + ' 
    FROM #StoreSales
    PIVOT(SUM(xCount) 
          FOR Week IN (' + @ColumnName + ')) AS PVTTable'
--Execute the Dynamic Pivot Query
EXEC sp_executesql @DynamicPivotQuery

If you are using SQL Server 2005+, then you can use the PIVOT function to transform the data from rows into columns.

It sounds like you will need to use dynamic sql if the weeks are unknown but it is easier to see the correct code using a hard-coded version initially.

First up, here are some quick table definitions and data for use:

CREATE TABLE yt 
(
  [Store] int, 
  [Week] int, 
  [xCount] int
);
    
INSERT INTO yt
(
  [Store], 
  [Week], [xCount]
)
VALUES
    (102, 1, 96),
    (101, 1, 138),
    (105, 1, 37),
    (109, 1, 59),
    (101, 2, 282),
    (102, 2, 212),
    (105, 2, 78),
    (109, 2, 97),
    (105, 3, 60),
    (102, 3, 123),
    (101, 3, 220),
    (109, 3, 87);

If your values are known, then you will hard-code the query:

select *
from 
(
  select store, week, xCount
  from yt 
) src
pivot
(
  sum(xcount)
  for week in ([1], [2], [3])
) piv;

See SQL Demo

Then if you need to generate the week number dynamically, your code will be:

DECLARE @cols AS NVARCHAR(MAX),
    @query  AS NVARCHAR(MAX)

select @cols = STUFF((SELECT ',' + QUOTENAME(Week) 
                    from yt
                    group by Week
                    order by Week
            FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE
            ).value('.', 'NVARCHAR(MAX)') 
        ,1,1,'')

set @query = 'SELECT store,' + @cols + ' from 
             (
                select store, week, xCount
                from yt
            ) x
            pivot 
            (
                sum(xCount)
                for week in (' + @cols + ')
            ) p '

execute(@query);

See SQL Demo.

The dynamic version, generates the list of week numbers that should be converted to columns. Both give the same result:

| STORE |   1 |   2 |   3 |
---------------------------
|   101 | 138 | 282 | 220 |
|   102 |  96 | 212 | 123 |
|   105 |  37 |  78 |  60 |
|   109 |  59 |  97 |  87 |