Combine multiple results in a subquery into a single comma-separated value

I've got two tables:

TableA
------
ID,
Name

TableB
------
ID,
SomeColumn,
TableA_ID (FK for TableA)

The relationship is one row of TableA - many of TableB.

Now, I want to see a result like this:

ID     Name      SomeColumn

1.     ABC       X, Y, Z (these are three different rows)
2.     MNO       R, S

This won't work (multiple results in a subquery):

SELECT ID,
       Name, 
       (SELECT SomeColumn FROM TableB WHERE F_ID=TableA.ID)
FROM TableA

This is a trivial problem if I do the processing on the client side. But this will mean I will have to run X queries on every page, where X is the number of results of TableA.

Note that I can't simply do a GROUP BY or something similar, as it will return multiple results for rows of TableA.

I'm not sure if a UDF, utilizing COALESCE or something similar might work?

Even this will serve the purpose

Sample data

declare @t table(id int, name varchar(20),somecolumn varchar(MAX))
insert into @t
    select 1,'ABC','X' union all
    select 1,'ABC','Y' union all
    select 1,'ABC','Z' union all
    select 2,'MNO','R' union all
    select 2,'MNO','S'

Query:

SELECT ID,Name,
    STUFF((SELECT ',' + CAST(T2.SomeColumn AS VARCHAR(MAX))
     FROM @T T2 WHERE T1.id = T2.id AND T1.name = T2.name
     FOR XML PATH('')),1,1,'') SOMECOLUMN
FROM @T T1
GROUP BY id,Name

Output:

ID  Name    SomeColumn
1   ABC     X,Y,Z
2   MNO     R,S

1. Create the UDF:

CREATE FUNCTION CombineValues
(
    @FK_ID INT -- The foreign key from TableA which is used 
               -- to fetch corresponding records
)
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @SomeColumnList VARCHAR(8000);

SELECT @SomeColumnList =
    COALESCE(@SomeColumnList + ', ', '') + CAST(SomeColumn AS varchar(20)) 
FROM TableB C
WHERE C.FK_ID = @FK_ID;

RETURN 
(
    SELECT @SomeColumnList
)
END

2. Use in subquery:

SELECT ID, Name, dbo.CombineValues(FK_ID) FROM TableA

3. If you are using stored procedure you can do like this:

CREATE PROCEDURE GetCombinedValues
 @FK_ID int
As
BEGIN
DECLARE @SomeColumnList VARCHAR(800)
SELECT @SomeColumnList =
    COALESCE(@SomeColumnList + ', ', '') + CAST(SomeColumn AS varchar(20)) 
FROM TableB
WHERE FK_ID = @FK_ID 

Select *, @SomeColumnList as SelectedIds
    FROM 
        TableA
    WHERE 
        FK_ID = @FK_ID 
END

In MySQL there is a group_concat function that will return what you're asking for.

SELECT TableA.ID, TableA.Name, group_concat(TableB.SomeColumn) 
as SomColumnGroup FROM TableA LEFT JOIN TableB ON 
TableB.TableA_ID = TableA.ID

I think you are on the right track with COALESCE. See here for an example of building a comma-delimited string:

http://www.sqlteam.com/article/using-coalesce-to-build-comma-delimited-string