PIVOT and UNPIVOT SQL

PIVOT rotates a table-valued expression by turning the unique values from one column in the expression into multiple columns in the output, and performs aggregations where they are required on any remaining column values that are wanted in the final output.

UNPIVOT performs the opposite operation to PIVOT by rotating columns of a table-valued expression into column values.

The following is annotated syntax for PIVOT.

SELECT <non-pivoted column>,

    [first pivoted column] AS <column name>,

    [second pivoted column] AS <column name>,

    ...

    [last pivoted column] AS <column name>

FROM

    (<SELECT query that produces the data>)

    AS <alias for the source query>

PIVOT

(

    <aggregation function>(<column being aggregated>)

FOR

[<column that contains the values that will become column headers>]

    IN ( [first pivoted column], [second pivoted column],

    ... [last pivoted column])

) AS <alias for the pivot table>

<optional ORDER BY clause>;

Example 

Here is the result set.

DaysToManufacture          AverageCost

0                          5.0885

1                          223.88

2                          359.1082

4                          949.4105

-- Pivot table with one row and five columns
SELECT 'AverageCost' AS Cost_Sorted_By_Production_Days, 
[0], [1], [2], [3], [4]
FROM
(SELECT DaysToManufacture, StandardCost 
    FROM Production.Product) AS SourceTable
PIVOT
(
AVG(StandardCost)
FOR DaysToManufacture IN ([0], [1], [2], [3], [4])
) AS PivotTable;

Here is the result set.

Cost_Sorted_By_Production_Days    0         1         2           3       4       

AverageCost                       5.0885    223.88    359.1082    NULL    949.4105