Question

This SO post details some benefits in performance regarding Derived vs. Temporary tables.

Other than performance, what situations exist for which a Derived table would not be appropriate.

One answer per post with an example would be helpful.

Answer 1

I would prefer to do a self-join on a temporary table than a derived table.

CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE foo AS SELECT ...;

SELECT ... FROM foo f1 JOIN foo f2 ON ...conditions...;

Versus using a derived table, where you have to write the whole query twice:

SELECT ... 
FROM (SELECT ...)
JOIN (SELECT ...) ON ...conditions...;

But another solution is to use common table expressions which are slightly different from derived tables:

WITH foo AS (SELECT ...)
SELECT ... FROM foo f1 JOIN foo f2 ON ...conditions...;

Provided you use a brand of database that supports this syntax (Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, PostgreSQL).