sqlite3 JOIN, GROUP_CONCAT using distinct with custom separator

Posted by aiwilliams on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by aiwilliams
Published on 2012-11-14T16:24:57Z Indexed on 2012/11/14 17:00 UTC
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Given a table of "events" where each event may be associated with zero or more "speakers" and zero or more "terms", those records associated with the events through join tables, I need to produce a table of all events with a column in each row which represents the list of "speaker_names" and "term_names" associated with each event.

However, when I run my query, I have duplication in the speaker_names and term_names values, since the join tables produce a row per association for each of the speakers and terms of the events:

1|Soccer|Bobby|Ball
2|Baseball|Bobby - Bobby - Bobby|Ball - Bat - Helmets
3|Football|Bobby - Jane - Bobby - Jane|Ball - Ball - Helmets - Helmets

The group_concat aggregate function has the ability to use 'distinct', which removes the duplication, though sadly it does not support that alongside the custom separator, which I really need. I am left with these results:

1|Soccer|Bobby|Ball
2|Baseball|Bobby|Ball,Bat,Helmets
3|Football|Bobby,Jane|Ball,Helmets

My question is this: Is there a way I can form the query or change the data structures in order to get my desired results?

Keep in mind this is a sqlite3 query I need, and I cannot add custom C aggregate functions, as this is for an Android deployment.

I have created a gist which makes it easy for you to test a possible solution: https://gist.github.com/4072840

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