Question

I started off with a rough draft query of:

SELECT S.Type,
COUNT(DISTINCT C.StateProvince)
FROM INV_LINE_ITEM ILI JOIN STOVE S ON ILI.FK_StoveNbr = S.SerialNumber
JOIN INVOICE I ON I.InvoiceNbr = ILI.FK_InvoiceNbr
JOIN CUSTOMER C ON I.FK_CustomerID = C.CustomerID
WHERE C.Country = 'USA' 
AND S.Type IN (SELECT S.Type
FROM INV_LINE_ITEM ILI JOIN STOVE S ON ILI.FK_StoveNbr = S.SerialNumber
JOIN INVOICE I ON I.InvoiceNbr = ILI.FK_InvoiceNbr
JOIN CUSTOMER C ON I.FK_CustomerID = C.CustomerID
WHERE C.Country = 'CAN' )
GROUP BY S.Type;

And it returned the following results:

Type            
--------------- -----------
FiredAlways     9
FiredNow        8

So, once I got the query working the way I wanted to I decided to format it some and I noticed something weird.

This query will produce the above results:

SELECT
CAST(S.Type as CHAR (10)) AS 'Stove Type',
COUNT(DISTINCT C.StateProvince) AS 'Number of Sales'
FROM STOVE S, INV_LINE_ITEM ILI, INVOICE I, CUSTOMER C
WHERE S.SerialNumber = ILI.FK_StoveNbr
AND ILI.FK_InvoiceNbr = I.InvoiceNbr
AND I.FK_CustomerID = C.CustomerID
AND C.Country = 'USA' 
AND S.Type IN 
(SELECT S.Type
FROM STOVE S, INV_LINE_ITEM ILI, INVOICE I, CUSTOMER C
WHERE S.SerialNumber = ILI.FK_StoveNbr
AND ILI.FK_InvoiceNbr = I.InvoiceNbr
AND I.FK_CustomerID = C.CustomerID
AND C.Country = 'CAN')
GROUP BY S.Type;

But this query doesn’t:

SELECT
CAST(S.Type as CHAR (10)) AS 'Stove Type',
COUNT(DISTINCT C.StateProvince) AS 'Number of Sales'
FROM STOVE S, INV_LINE_ITEM ILI, INVOICE I, CUSTOMER C
WHERE S.SerialNumber = ILI.FK_StoveNbr
AND ILI.FK_InvoiceNbr = I.InvoiceNbr
AND I.FK_CustomerID = C.CustomerID
AND C.Country = 'USA' 
AND S.Type IN 
(SELECT CAST(S.Type as CHAR (10))
FROM STOVE S, INV_LINE_ITEM ILI, INVOICE I, CUSTOMER C
WHERE S.SerialNumber = ILI.FK_StoveNbr
AND ILI.FK_InvoiceNbr = I.InvoiceNbr
AND I.FK_CustomerID = C.CustomerID
AND C.Country = 'CAN')
GROUP BY S.Type;

Instead it produces this:

Stove Type Number of Sales
---------- ---------------
FiredNow   8

And I’m not really sure why. I had thought that I only edited the S.Type in Line 10 to match the S.Type in Line 2 but it’s clear that more is happening.

Answer 1

Because “FiredAlways” is over the 10 characters you are casting to.