Using string values as column names

[Bobbber]

Hi,

This sounds like a strange question, but is there any function (or any other way) of passing a string in and getting out the field with the same name in a query?

Something like this (SalesTotals is a column in tblSalesTotal) :

SELECT someFunction ('SalesTotals') from database.schema.tblSalesTotal

The reason I ask is because I want to be able to dynamically select a field value based upon the string held in another table.

Thanks in advance,

Rob

 

[dhulbert]

You could rig something up using

sys.columns and sys.objects which would return tables that have column names matching a string then I guess you could create some Dynamic SQL from there to run your selects.



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[wbodger]

Yes, that will work, we have to do it frequently with Dynamic SQL here.

wb