sql server - SQL GROUP BY CASE statement with aggregate function

Question

I have a column that looks something like this:

CASE
    WHEN col1 > col2 THEN SUM(col3*col4)
    ELSE 0
END AS some_product

And I would like to put it in my GROUP BY clause, but this seems to cause problems because there is an aggregate function in column. Is there a way to GROUP BY a column alias such as some_product in this case, or do I need to put this in a subquery and group on that?

Answer 1

My guess is that you don't really want to GROUP BY some_product.

The answer to: "Is there a way to GROUP BY a column alias such as some_product in this case, or do I need to put this in a subquery and group on that?" is: You can not GROUP BY a column alias.

The SELECT clause, where column aliases are assigned, is not processed until after the GROUP BY clause. An inline view or common table expression (CTE) could be used to make the results available for grouping.

Inline view:

select ...
from (select ... , CASE WHEN col1 > col2 THEN SUM(col3*col4) ELSE 0 END AS some_product
   from ...
   group by col1, col2 ... ) T
group by some_product ...

CTE:

with T as (select ... , CASE WHEN col1 > col2 THEN SUM(col3*col4) ELSE 0 END AS some_product
   from ...
   group by col1, col2 ... )
select ...
from T
group by some_product ...