Postgresql – ERROR: subquery must return only one column

join;postgresqlselectsubquery

I have two tables one is Category and other one is Product.

Table Description are

Category

  • name
  • description
  • parent_id (self referencing key) (can be upto 3 levels)

Product

  • name
  • description
  • type
  • category_id (foreign key to Category table)

    I want to show all the categories on a single along with the associated products. So for getting associated categories I use the below query. I am able to do the left join at the self referential tables but I am not able to get list of product data, as this is a subquery and subquery would only return a single column.

        select                                                                                                                                                                                                      
                   cat1.id, ARRAY(select name, type, description from product where
                   product.category_id = cat1.id)
                   as category_1_products_data,
    
                   cat2.id, ARRAY(select name, type, description from product where
                   product.category_id = cat2.id)
                   as category_2_products_data,
    
                   cat3.id, ARRAY(select name, type, description from product where
                   product.category_id = cat3.id)
                   as category_3_products_data
        from       category cat1
        left join  category cat2
        on         cat2.parent_id = cat1.id
        left join  category cat3
        on         cat3.parent_id = cat2.id
        where      cat1.parent_id is null;
    

ERROR: subquery must return only one column
LINE 2: cat1.id, (select name, type, description from …

Best Answer

All elements of an array must have the same type; when constructing an array with a subquery, the simplest way to enforce this is to demand that the query returns exactly one column.

But you can make the subquery return a single column whose type is a composite type by using a row constructor:

ARRAY(SELECT ROW(name, type, description) FROM ...)