Sql-server – Subqueries’ aliases same as main queries’ aliases

aliassql serversubqueryt-sql

I have an SQL query whose aliases are the same as some of its subquery's aliases.

For example:

select *
from ROOM r
where ...
         (
              select *
              from ROAD r
              where ...
         )

This works fine, as the subquery's alias seems to hide the main one's.

  1. Will it work that way in all cases?
  2. Will I ever get undefined results?
  3. If it's OK to do that, how can I make a reference to the main query's r?

Best Answer

It's OK for nested subqueries to use the same aliases as used in the parent query, although it might be a bit confusing for someone reading the code. The name space for aliases on a nested subquery is separate from the name space on the parent. For example the query below has a nested subquery b that also has an alias b used within it. This would be potentially confusing to the programmer but fine with the DBMS engine:

   select a.foo
          ,b.bar
          ,b.BarCount
      from (select b.bar
                  ,count (*) as BarCount
              from BarTable b
              join OtherTable o
                on b.OtherTableID = o.OtherTableID
             group by b.bar) b
      join Foobar a
        on a.bar = b.bar

On a correlated subquery you have access to the parent's aliases, so the aliases must be unique across the parent query and correlated subquery. If we take a correlated subquery such as the one below we have a single, global name space shared between the parent query and the correlated subquery:

select a.foo
      ,b.bar
  from Foobar a
  join Bar b
    on b.FooBarID = a.FooBarID
 where not exists
       (select 1
          from Bar b2
         where b2.BarCategoryID = b.BarCategoryID
           and b2.BarDate > b.BarDate)

The correlated subquery does not have an alias as it does not participate in a join as such1. The references b and b2 for bar are both available to the subquery as correlated subqueries share their namespace for aliases with the parent.

1 Note that the optimiser may choose to use join operators within the plan behind the scenes, although the actual operation specified is a correlated subquery and not a join against a nested subquery.

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