String with commas and references table? - sql-server

Question

I have a legacy VB application that we are maintaining. A design decision we took was to store certain data points as concatenated strings. This change is set in stone as the majority of code is complete.
I'm running a loop through an array of values. What I'm doing is, looking up a LABEL for each value in a reference table. I need to be able to display the values in one label. I'm having a difficult time concetenating the values into a string and then displaying it in a label. Here is my code...
If strField = "Expenditures" Then
If InStr(1, strOldValue, ",") > 0 Then
strArray = Split((strOldValue), ",")
For x = 0 To UBound(strArray)
For Each item In strArray
strMessage = DLookUp(1, "Label", "tblText_References", "ID = '" & item & "'
**''''******here I'm trying to save teh value in strMessage, however, at next item, I need it to be added to strMessage in some fashion, with a (,), I'm not sure how to do it. There are anywhere from 2 to 4 ITEMS i might have.**
Next item
Next
End if
End if

Answer 1

You should definitely reconsider how you are storing the meal data. Never store multiple values in a single column concatenated by commas. Instead, you want to create a table to contain the selected items, which can then be JOINed to other tables, utilizing a one-to-many relationship.
The following code shows an example of how you might accomplish this.
Create a table to contain Users who will have Meals associated with them:
CREATE TABLE dbo.Users
(
UserID INT NOT NULL
CONSTRAINT PK_Users
PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
, UserName VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL
);
Create a table to describe the Meals:
CREATE TABLE dbo.Meals
(
MealID INT NOT NULL
CONSTRAINT PK_Meals
PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
, MealName VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL
);
Create a junction table that joins the Users to their Meals:
CREATE TABLE dbo.UserMeals
(
UserID INT NOT NULL
, MealID INT NOT NULL
, CONSTRAINT PK_UserMeals
PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (UserID, MealID)
);
Insert a sample user:
INSERT INTO dbo.Users (UserID, UserName)
VALUES (1, 'Test User');
Insert the 4 meals:
INSERT INTO dbo.Meals (MealID, MealName)
VALUES (80, 'Breakfast')
, (81, 'Lunch')
, (82, 'Dinner')
, (83, 'Snack');
Insert some sample rows into the UserMeals table that associate meals with users:
INSERT INTO dbo.UserMeals (UserID, MealID)
VALUES (1, 80)
, (1, 81);
Show the users with their associated meals:
SELECT u.UserName
, m.MealName
FROM dbo.UserMeals um
INNER JOIN dbo.Users u ON um.UserID = u.UserID
INNER JOIN dbo.Meals m ON um.MealID = m.MealID;
The results:

Answer 2

this is all the code that's needed. I created a new variable called strNEWmessage as string. I already had a variable called strMessage as string The answer is: strNewMessage = strNewMessage & "," strMessage