Question

I have something like

(COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_N stands for a long subquery)

select
  ID_Operation,
  FirstCheck = CASE WHEN (COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_1)= 0 then 0 else 1 end,
  SecondCheck = CASE WHEN (COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_2)= 0 then 0 else 1 end,
  ThirdCheck = CASE WHEN (COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_3)= 0 then 0 else 1 end,
  AllChecksOk = Case WHEN 
               (FirstCheck + SecondCheck + Third CHeck = 3) 
               Then 'OK' Else 'No' End
from 
  AllOperationsTable

Is it possible to use FirstCheck, SecondCheck, ThirdCheck as I did in the AllChecksOk line?

I am not concerned about performance, this is something that is manually run once a day on a very small number of records, I just want to avoid to create views, tables or temporary tables and keep all in a single select statement.

As an altenrative I can do this, but it makes the query less readable (as I need to write twice every complex expression):

select
  ID_Operation,
  FirstCheck = CASE WHEN (COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_1)= 0 then 0 else 1 end,
  SecondCheck = CASE WHEN (COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_2)= 0 then 0 else 1 end,
  ThirdCheck = CASE WHEN (COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_3)= 0 then 0 else 1 end,
  AllChecksOk = Case WHEN 
               (COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_1+ COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_2+ 
               COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_3CHeck = 3) Then 'OK' Else 'No' End
from 
  AllOperationsTable

Answer 1

You can’t reference a column alias in the select but you can use a CTE as below.

;WITH CTE AS
(
select
  ID_Operation,
  FirstCheck = CASE WHEN (COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_1)= 0 then 0 else 1 end,
  SecondCheck = CASE WHEN (COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_2)= 0 then 0 else 1 end,
  ThirdCheck = CASE WHEN (COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_3)= 0 then 0 else 1 end
from 
  AllOperationsTable
)
SELECT *,
       AllChecksOk = Case WHEN 
               (COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_1+ COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_2+ 
               COMPLEX_EXPRESSION_3CHeck = 3) Then 'OK' Else 'No' End
FROM CTE

You can also use CROSS APPLY to define the 3 column aliases then reference them in the main SELECT list as in this example.