You can use the crosstab()
function of the additional module tablefunc - which you have to install once per database. Since PostgreSQL 9.1 you can use CREATE EXTENSION
for that:
CREATE EXTENSION tablefunc;
In your case, I believe it would look something like this:
CREATE TABLE t (Section CHAR(1), Status VARCHAR(10), Count integer);
INSERT INTO t VALUES ('A', 'Active', 1);
INSERT INTO t VALUES ('A', 'Inactive', 2);
INSERT INTO t VALUES ('B', 'Active', 4);
INSERT INTO t VALUES ('B', 'Inactive', 5);
SELECT row_name AS Section,
category_1::integer AS Active,
category_2::integer AS Inactive
FROM crosstab('select section::text, status, count::text from t',2)
AS ct (row_name text, category_1 text, category_2 text);