Can SQL use calculate values as alias names

Question

I am trying to find out how to use a calculated value as part of an alias name .

For example:

Select employeeName as ''name of guy' but where 'name of guy' could be getdate() + 'name o guy' Addin qualifiers just prevents the code inside from calculating.

Is this possible in any way? I'm going to use a partition to group results by year and I need the column aliases to be based on the year thy are in

You need to use dynamic SQL to have such variable names. That is, you need to create the SQL as a string and then execute it. — Gordon Linoff, Aug 27 '13 at 16:34
I don't think so. For any query that returns more than one row, you might have ambiguity problems. — Dan Bracuk, Aug 27 '13 at 16:34

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 27 '13 at 18:39

I don't know if it's what you are looking for but it could be a good starting :

DECLARE @var table(rownum int, rowkey varchar(60), ALIAS varchar(80))
INSERT INTO @var SELECT row_number() over (ORDER BY employeeName), employeeName, cast(getdate() AS varchar(12))+employeeName FROM Table1
DECLARE @query varchar(500)
DECLARE @rowkey varchar(60), @i int, @max int
SET @i = 1
SET @max = (SELECT count(*) FROM @var)
SET @query = ''
WHILE @i <= @max
BEGIN
    SET @rowkey = (SELECT rowkey FROM @var WHERE rownum = @i)
    SET @query = 'select employeeName as "'+(SELECT ALIAS FROM @var WHERE rowkey = @rowkey)+'" from Table1 where employeeName = '''+@rowkey+''';'
    exec(@query)
    SET @i = @i + 1
END;

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 27 '13 at 16:45

0

If you're only expecting a single value, you could use a table variable. However, if multiple rows are created it effectively becomes a temporary table. If you think that's likely, declare as a temporary table.

answered Aug 27 '13 at 16:45

Mentatmatt

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Can SQL use calculate values as alias names

2 Answers2