Re: field must appear in the GROUP BY clause or be used in an aggregate function?

On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 11:11:28AM -0500, Bill Moran wrote:
> Hey all.
>
> I've hit an SQL problem that I'm a bit mystified by. I have two different
> questions regarding this problem: why? and how do I work around it?
>
> The following query:
>
> SELECT GCP.id,
> GCP.Name
> FROM Gov_Capital_Project GCP,
> WHERE TLM.TLI_ID = $2
> group by GCP.id
> ORDER BY gcp.name;
>
> Produces the following error:
>
> ERROR: column "gcp.name" must appear in the GROUP BY clause or be used in
> an aggregate function
>
> That field is a CHAR, so I'm not sure what kind of aggregate to use,
> or (more important to my understanding) why one is necessary.
>
> As I said, I'm not sure I understand why this occurs. I'm assuming that I
> don't understand "group by" as well as I thought I did ;)
>
> This isn't my query, I'm translating a system prototyped in MSSQL to
> Postgres. This query _does_ work in MSSQL. Does that constitute a
> bug in MSSQL, or a shortcomming of Postgres, or just a difference of
> interpretation?

Well, if "non-standard" == "bug", then it's a bug in mssql. Your query
doesn't make any sense. What value for "Name" should be chosen if
there's more than one?

Michael
--
Michael Darrin Chaney
mdchaney(at)michaelchaney(dot)com
http://www.michaelchaney.com/