SQL help

[Tim.]

I have a query that returns 100 fields from 20 tables.

One of the lines in the select statement is:

CASE WHEN Column1 IS NULL THEN PLSupplierAccount.Salesperson ELSE Column1 END AS Sales_Agent,

I’ve not anonymised it, that’s what it actually says.

Why does it say Column1 - as far as I can see there is no field in any of the 20 table that’s called Column1.

 

[Oggy997]

I've never even considered that an option in SQL, but i can see the logic in how it would work.

What do you need help with, though? It's s surely just applying the case statement to the first returned column in the select.

 

[Tim.]

If it’s returning the first column in the select statement then that’s invoice date. Which makes even less sense.

 

[charltjr]

Is it part of a stored procedure? It would be horrendous from a readability perspective, but if they're defining @Column1 somewhere then that could do it.

When you say SQL, do you mean MSSQL or one of the other types?

 

[Tim.]

Is it part of a stored procedure? It would be horrendous from a readability perspective, but if they're defining @Column1 somewhere then that could do it.

When you say SQL, do you mean MSSQL or one of the other types?

I’m afraid I don’t know the answer… to either of your questions! 🤷‍♂️

 

[charltjr]

Ah, OK, fair enough. What tool are you using to run the SQL? Is it MS Access/SQL Developer/Something else?

At the moment all I can really suggest is doing a text search through the SQL and looking for anywhere that Column1 is being set, probably look something like "@Column1 = <something>"

 

[Tim.]

It transpires Column1 exists in some kind of exception table (which hasn’t been populated for years) so the code has been updated to ignore it.

Thanks for your help, John @charltjr