combining 2 or more columns "as" one column in a select statement

hi guys,
how do u combine 2 columns as one in a select statement such as:
"select firstname,lastname from tablename"
where firstname and lastname are to be combined as single column called name
.
i had difficulty finding other resources for this issue.
Thanks in advance,
AdsString concatenation. The + symbol concatenates strings in SQL. So
your example would be something like:
select rtrim(firstname) + ' ' + rtrim(lastname) as [name] from
tableowner.tablename
or
select rtrim(lastname) + ', ' + rtrim(firstname) as [name] from
tableowner.tablename
The rtrim() function just trims off trailing whitespace (I'm assuming
there wont be any leading whitespace but you can take care of that too
with ltrim()), so you don't end up with something like "John
Smith " or "Smith , John ". The rest just depends exactly
what string you want at the end of it.
*mike hodgson*
http://sqlnerd.blogspot.com
ads wrote:

>hi guys,
>how do u combine 2 columns as one in a select statement such as:
>"select firstname,lastname from tablename"
>where firstname and lastname are to be combined as single column called nam
e.
>i had difficulty finding other resources for this issue.
>Thanks in advance,
>Ads
>
>|||SELECT fname + ' ' + lname as FulName from names
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"ads" <ads@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:53BE5122-5439-4101-A221-E3FA011C6C24@.microsoft.com...
> hi guys,
> how do u combine 2 columns as one in a select statement such as:
> "select firstname,lastname from tablename"
> where firstname and lastname are to be combined as single column called
> name.
> i had difficulty finding other resources for this issue.
> Thanks in advance,
> Ads
>|||Just to throw my $.02 in, I'd suggest doing NULL checks on any string concat
in SQL server.
So my version would look like:
SELECT ISNULL(FirstName, '') + ' ' + ISNULL(LastName, '')
FROM TableName
Now if you want to get fancy you could throw a check in there to only output
the space if both names are present. At that point though I might use a udf
SELECT dbo.udfGetFullName(TablePK)
FROM TableName
Where the udf performs the logic required to properly format the name.
"ads" wrote:

> hi guys,
> how do u combine 2 columns as one in a select statement such as:
> "select firstname,lastname from tablename"
> where firstname and lastname are to be combined as single column called na
me.
> i had difficulty finding other resources for this issue.
> Thanks in advance,
> Ads
>