Question

I have an SQL statement that grabs the grades of different activity types (Homework, Quiz, etc), and if there’s a drop lowest for that type, it drops, else, it remains. The errors are below as well as the SQL Code.

SELECT     Student.firstName, Student.lastName, 'Grades' =
           CASE 
              WHEN Grades.activityType = 'Homework' THEN
                CASE WHEN Policy.drop_hw = 1 THEN
                    (AVG(SUM(Grades.grade) - MIN(Grades.grade))) * (Policy.homework / 100)
                ELSE
                    (AVG(Grades.grade) * (Policy.homework / 100))
                END
            END,  Course.courseNum, Course.sectNum, Grades.activityType

FROM ...

Here are the errors I’m getting:

- Cannot perform an aggregate function on an expression containing an aggregate or a subquery.
- Column 'Policy.drop_hw' is invalid in the select list because it is not contained in either an aggregate function or the GROUP BY clause.  

Answer 1

Look into analytical functions. (SO question, Oracle documentation).

Something like this:

AVG(Grades.grade) OVER (PARTITION BY Grades.student_id) AS avg_of_grades

and:

(AVG(SUM(Grades.grade) - MIN(Grades.grade))) OVER (PARTITION BY Grades.student_id) AS avg_grades_with_drop

Set the partitioning with whatever makes sense in your case; we can’t tell since you omitted the FROM ... in your example.

You can then use those column aliases in any calculations inside your CASE statement.