MySQL Pivot multiple rows into new columns - mysql

Question

I am trying to write a pivot function in MySQL workbench and many of the places I've looked have not been super relevant.
I currently have:
order_ID Part Description Order number
1 103 A 1
2 104 B 1
3 103 A 2
4 105 C 3
5 103 A 4
6 105 C 4
7 107 D 4
I would like to create:
Order Part1 Description Part2 Description Part3 Description
1 103 A 104 B
2 103 A
3 105 C
4 103 A 105 C 107 D
I can keep the primary key in the output, but it is not necessary. The problem I am running into is that many pivot functions involve using distinct parts names to move them; however, I have over 500 parts. I also would like to move the description and the part together so they are next to each other--most pivot functions are not powerful enough to address that.
I did write a macro to do this in Excel, but it must be done in a database because of further analysis in R and I am pulling data from a database and I must automate any changes made to the data. As a result, I DO NOT have a choice in how the data is organized and laid out. Please do not mention normalizing data or other database techniques because I am trying to fix the data and how messy it is, but I DO NOT have a choice in how the data is inputted.
Some resources I used to gain experience with pivoting in MySQL, but I have not been able to get any code to work.
MySQL pivot table
mysql pivoting - how can I fetch data from the same table into different columns?
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MySQL/Pivot_table
http://buysql.com/mysql/14-how-to-automate-pivot-tables.html

Answer 1

Select group_concat(Table.column1) as anything,
group_concat(Table.column2 separator ';')
AS Anything2, Table.`column3`
FROM Table
group by Table.column3;
Alter TABLE Table ADD
`newcolumn1` varchar(100) DEFAULT '' after `column3`;
Alter TABLE MB ADD
`newcolumn2` varchar(500) DEFAULT '' after `newcolumn1`;
UPDATE Table SET
`newcolumn1` = IF (
LOCATE(',', column1) >0,
SUBSTRING(column1, 1,LOCATE(',', column1)-1),
column1
),
`newcolumn2` = IF(
LOCATE(',', column1) > 0,
SUBSTRING(column1, LOCATE(',', column1)+1),
'');
UPDATE Table SET
newcolumn2 = SUBSTRING_INDEX(newcolumn2, ',', 1);
UPDATE Table SET
newcolumn3 = SUBSTRING_INDEX(newcolumn3, ',', 1);
This code achieved exactly the format I wanted above.