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Asked: 2026-05-24T01:41:40+00:00

I’m having trouble with a simple auto-increment using common table expressions. (I don’t want

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I’m having trouble with a simple auto-increment using common table expressions. (I don’t want ROW_NUMBER() because I will be using conditions for my incrementing) so here is a simplified version of my problem which still doesn’t work. I get this error: “Invalid column name ‘n'” when I try the following:

 WITH NumberSongPair ( n,s ) AS (
    SELECT 0 as n,SongKey as s from Songs where SongKey = 1
    UNION ALL
    SELECT 1 + n as n,SongKey as s 
    from Songs 
    WHERE n < 500 )
SELECT n,s FROM NumberSongPair
OPTION ( MAXRECURSION 500 )

Why can’t it recognize ‘n’ as a newly a created incremented column? I’d even be happy just getting rid of the first select all together so long as I can keep incrementing a number as I select columns from a table.

If you are curious about my overall goals it’s to ranks Songs…. with conditions with something like this:

 WITH Nbrs ( base, n,ctr ) AS (
    SELECT 0,0,0 UNION ALL
    SELECT 1 + base,'n' = case 
                        when (base + 1)%2=0 then ctr
                        when ctr <=20 then ctr
                        else null end,
                 'ctr' = case
                        when (base + 1)%2=0 then ctr + 1
                        else ctr end
    FROM Nbrs WHERE base < 500 )
SELECT n FROM Nbrs
OPTION ( MAXRECURSION 500 )

EDIT…

Sorry, my explanation wasn’t very good. I just wanted to add another psuedo auto-incrementing column that would sometimes go null instead of increment. Basically I’m trying something like this:

declare @songs table (songkey int, dropable bit, points int)

insert @songs values (1, 1, 1); insert @songs values (2, 1, 20);
insert @songs values (3, 1, 3); insert @songs values (3, 0, 11); 
insert @songs values (4, 0, 4); insert @songs values (6, 0, 2); 

select row_number() over(order by points desc) as RankingPosition, songkey, dropable, points 
from @Songs

But adding the following condition: ‘dropable’ songs lose their ranking (are null) if they don’t make the top 3. This means SongKey #2 won’t drop, but but #4 and #6 will. So the output would look like:

  • PositionRank 1 – Songkey 2
  • PositionRank 2 – Songkey 3
  • PositionRank 3 – Songkey 4
  • PositionRank 4 – Songkey 6
  • PositionRank null – Songkey 4
  • PositionRank null – Songkey 1

Rank is determined by points, but there are conditions.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team
    WITH songs (songkey, dropable, points) AS (
  SELECT 1, 1,  1 UNION ALL
  SELECT 2, 1, 20 UNION ALL
  SELECT 3, 1,  3 UNION ALL
  SELECT 4, 0,  4 UNION ALL
  SELECT 5, 0, 11 UNION ALL
  SELECT 6, 0,  2
),
preliminaryRanking AS (
  SELECT
    rank1 = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY points DESC),
    *
  FROM songs
),
finalRanking AS (
  SELECT
    rank2 = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (
      ORDER BY
        CASE
          WHEN rank1 <= 3 OR dropable = 0 THEN rank1
          ELSE CAST(0x7FFFFFFF AS int)
        END
    ),
    *
  FROM preliminaryRanking
)
SELECT
  PositionRank = CASE WHEN rank1 <= 3 OR dropable = 0 THEN rank2 END,
  songkey, dropable, points
FROM finalRanking
ORDER BY rank1

    Output:

    PositionRank         songkey     dropable    points
-------------------- ----------- ----------- -----------
1                    2           1           20
2                    5           0           11
3                    4           0           4
NULL                 3           1           3
4                    6           0           2
NULL                 1           1           1
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