How can I combine multiple rows into a comma-delimited list in Oracle?

I have a simple query:

select * from countries

with the following results:

country_name
------------
Albania
Andorra
Antigua
.....

I would like to return the results in one row, so like this:

Albania, Andorra, Antigua, ...

Of course, I can write a PL/SQL function to do the job (I already did in Oracle 10g), but is there a nicer, preferably non-Oracle-specific solution (or may be a built-in function) for this task?

I would generally use it to avoid multiple rows in a sub-query, so if a person has more then one citizenship, I do not want her/him to be a duplicate in the list.

My question is based on the similar question on SQL server 2005.

UPDATE: My function looks like this:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION APPEND_FIELD (sqlstr in varchar2, sep in varchar2 ) return varchar2 is
ret varchar2(4000) := '';
TYPE cur_typ IS REF CURSOR;
rec cur_typ;
field varchar2(4000);
begin
     OPEN rec FOR sqlstr;
     LOOP
	     FETCH rec INTO field;
		 EXIT WHEN rec%NOTFOUND;
         ret := ret || field || sep;
     END LOOP;
	 if length(ret) = 0 then
	      RETURN '';
	 else
     	  RETURN substr(ret,1,length(ret)-length(sep));
	 end if;
end;

The WM_CONCAT function (if included in your database, pre Oracle 11.2) or LISTAGG (starting Oracle 11.2) should do the trick nicely. For example, this gets a comma-delimited list of the table names in your schema:

select listagg(table_name, ', ') within group (order by table_name) 
  from user_tables;

or

select wm_concat(table_name) 
  from user_tables;

More details/options

Link to documentation

Here is a simple way without stragg or creating a function.

create table countries ( country_name varchar2 (100));

insert into countries values ('Albania');

insert into countries values ('Andorra');

insert into countries values ('Antigua');
  

SELECT SUBSTR (SYS_CONNECT_BY_PATH (country_name , ','), 2) csv
      FROM (SELECT country_name , ROW_NUMBER () OVER (ORDER BY country_name ) rn,
	               COUNT (*) OVER () cnt
              FROM countries)
     WHERE rn = cnt
START WITH rn = 1
CONNECT BY rn = PRIOR rn + 1;

CSV                                                                             
--------------------------
Albania,Andorra,Antigua                                                         

1 row selected.

As others have mentioned, if you are on 11g R2 or greater, you can now use listagg which is much simpler.

select listagg(country_name,', ') within group(order by country_name) csv
  from countries;

CSV                                                                             
--------------------------
Albania, Andorra, Antigua
                                                       
1 row selected.

For Oracle you can use LISTAGG

You can use this as well:

SELECT RTRIM (
          XMLAGG (XMLELEMENT (e, country_name || ',')).EXTRACT ('//text()'),
          ',')
          country_name
  FROM countries;

you can try this query.

select listagg(country_name,',') within group (order by country_name) cnt 
from countries; 

The fastest way it is to use the Oracle collect function.

You can also do this:

select *
  2    from (
  3  select deptno,
  4         case when row_number() over (partition by deptno order by ename)=1
  5             then stragg(ename) over
  6                  (partition by deptno
  7                       order by ename
  8                         rows between unbounded preceding
  9                                  and unbounded following)
 10         end enames
 11    from emp
 12         )
 13   where enames is not null

Visit the site ask tom and search on 'stragg' or 'string concatenation' . Lots of examples. There is also a not-documented oracle function to achieve your needs.

I needed a similar thing and found the following solution.

select RTRIM(XMLAGG(XMLELEMENT(e,country_name || ',')).EXTRACT('//text()'),',') country_name from  

In this example we are creating a function to bring a comma delineated list of distinct line level AP invoice hold reasons into one field for header level query:

 FUNCTION getHoldReasonsByInvoiceId (p_InvoiceId IN NUMBER) RETURN VARCHAR2

  IS
 
  v_HoldReasons   VARCHAR2 (1000);
  
  v_Count         NUMBER := 0;

  CURSOR v_HoldsCusror (p2_InvoiceId IN NUMBER)
   IS
     SELECT DISTINCT hold_reason
       FROM ap.AP_HOLDS_ALL APH
      WHERE status_flag NOT IN ('R') AND invoice_id = p2_InvoiceId;
BEGIN

  v_HoldReasons := ' ';

  FOR rHR IN v_HoldsCusror (p_InvoiceId)
  LOOP
     v_Count := v_COunt + 1;

     IF (v_Count = 1)
     THEN
        v_HoldReasons := rHR.hold_reason;
     ELSE
        v_HoldReasons := v_HoldReasons || ', ' || rHR.hold_reason;
     END IF;
  END LOOP;

  RETURN v_HoldReasons;
END; 

I have always had to write some PL/SQL for this or I just concatenate a ',' to the field and copy into an editor and remove the CR from the list giving me the single line.

That is,

select country_name||', ' country from countries

A little bit long winded both ways.

If you look at Ask Tom you will see loads of possible solutions but they all revert to type declarations and/or PL/SQL

Ask Tom

SELECT REPLACE(REPLACE
((SELECT     TOP (100) PERCENT country_name + ', ' AS CountryName
FROM         country_name
ORDER BY country_name FOR XML PATH('')), 
'&<CountryName>', ''), '&<CountryName>', '') AS CountryNames

you can use this query to do the above task

DECLARE @test NVARCHAR(max)
SELECT @test = COALESCE(@test + ',', '') + field2 FROM #test SELECT field2= @test

for detail and step by step explanation visit the following link
http://oops-solution.blogspot.com/2011/11/sql-server-convert-table-column-data.html