SQL Server Table Transformation Query / Combine Column Names With Values

Question

This is my existing SQL Table with 3 columns (q1, q2, q3) and 2 rows :

> q1 q2 q3
> --------
> 1  2  3
> 4  5  6

I need an SQL query that would transform that table and return a result set containing 2 new columns (cg, sg) and 6 rows combining table column names with values:

> cg  sg
> ======
> q1  1
> q1  4
> q2  2
> q2  5
> q3  3
> q3  6

Perhaps that would require some kind of "PIVOT" operation, but I can't get it to work after numerous tries.

Any advice or solution? Thanks.

PS I can't use stored procedures, only a single query.

Answer 1

You can do this using UNION:

SELECT 'q1' as cg, q1 as sg FROM t1
UNION SELECT 'q2' as cg, q2 as sg FROM t1
UNION SELECT 'q3' as cg, q3 as sg FROM t1

Answer 2

Here is another method that scans the table only once.

SELECT
   x.*
FROM tbl t
CROSS APPLY( VALUES
    ('q1', q1),
    ('q2', q2),
    ('q3', q3)
) x(cg, sg)