Get result of joining multiple tables as one row

I have these 2 tables:

table1:

id | name
---------
1  | john
2  | jack

table2:

id | profile_id | institution
-----------------------------
1  | 1          | SFU
2  | 1          | UBC
3  | 2          | BU
4  | 2          | USC
5  | 2          | SFU

If I want to get all the information about a user using his userid, I can simply join them using this:

select a.id, a.name, b.institution from table1 a, table2 b
where a.id = USER_ID and a.id = b.profile_id

which for USER_ID = 1 returns:

id | name | institution
-----------------------
1  | john | SFU
1  | john | UBC

What I need is actually 1 unique row instead of multiple rows. Is it in any way possible to get something like this? (I haven't seen something to do it but am not sure)

id | name | institution
-----------------------
1  | john | [SFU, UBC]

You can use the GROUP_CONCAT function

SELECT a.id, a.name, CONCAT('[',GROUP_CONCAT(b.institution),']') institution
FROM table1 a INNER JOIN table2 b
ON a.id = b.profile_id
WHERE a.id = USER_ID
GROUP BY a.id, a.name;

or with your original query

select a.id, a.name, CONCAT('[',GROUP_CONCAT(b.institution),']') institution
from table1 a, table2 b where a.id = USER_ID and a.id = b.profile_id
group by a.id, a.name;

Give it a Try !!!

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#48642, answer score: 8