Question

I have a query that is joining two tables. I would like to be able to create an alias that allows the value to default to a different field when the original field is null. Here is an example:

select
    Table1.Name, 
    Table2.Name, 
    (case when Table1.Name then Table2.Name else Table1.Name end) AS 'RealName'
from Table3
left join Table1 on Table1.ID = Table3.Table1_ID
left join Table2 on Table2.ID = Table3.Table2_ID
order by `RealName` asc

I am getting an “unknown column in field list” error when I try doing this.

Update: Turns out my unknown column error was due to something else. The MySQL coalesce function worked great for this.

Answer 1

...COALESCE(Table1.Name, Table2.Name) AS RealName...