I may be missing something simple, but it seems that the separator I'm choosing for CONCAT_WS doesn't seem to be working when inside a more complex query.
First I tested CONCAT_WS by itself:
SELECT CONCAT_WS(' / ', 'a', 'b', 'c') AS `test`;
Which returned:
test
a / b / c
Then I tried it inside a GROUP_CONCAT which I intended to use:
SELECT GROUP_CONCAT( CONCAT_WS(' / ', 'a', 'b', 'c') ) AS `test`;
Which returned:
test
a / b / c
Okay all good, so I tried it in my proper query on live data:
SELECT `Box Barcode`,`Title`,`Start Date`,`End Date`,`Offsite Indicator`,`MIA`,
GROUP_CONCAT( CONCAT_WS(' / ',`Description`) ) AS `Contents`
FROM `boxes`
GROUP BY `Box Barcode` ORDER BY `Box Barcode` ASC ;
Which returned the correct results, except with commas instead of /
For example here's one line of the results:
Box Barcode Title Start Date End Date Offsite Indicator MIA Contents
C5500501127 PPS AMEX 30/06/2002 30/06/2002 TRUE FALSE PPS AMEX,PPS AMEX,PPS DINERS,PPS DINERS,PPS LIABILITIES,PPS PROPERTY PLAN AND EQUIPMENT,PPS ASSETS
A couple hour's of googling have not helped. Anyone have any idea where I'm going wrong? This is via a PhpMyAdmin web interface on a Debian server running MariaDB (libmysql - 5.5.53).