Column "invalid in the select list because it is not contained in either an aggregate function or the GROUP BY clause"
I would like to display the column B
in my below SQL, but when I add it to the query it gives me the following error:
Column T2.B' is invalid in the select list because it is not contained in either an aggregate function or the GROUP BY clause.
My code:
SELECT A, COUNT(B) as T1, B
FROM T2
WHERE ID=1
GROUP BY A
Put in other words, this error is telling you that SQL Server does not know which B
to select from the group.
Either you want to select one specific value (e.g. the MIN
, SUM
, or AVG
) in which case you would use the appropriate aggregate function, or you want to select every value as a new row (i.e. including B
in the GROUP BY
field list).
Consider the following data:
ID A B 1 1 13 1 1 79 1 2 13 1 2 13 1 2 42
The query
SELECT A, COUNT(B) AS T1
FROM T2
GROUP BY A
would return:
A T1 1 2 2 3
which is all well and good.
However consider the following (illegal) query, which would produce this error:
SELECT A, COUNT(B) AS T1, B
FROM T2
GROUP BY A
And its returned data set illustrating the problem:
A T1 B 1 2 13? 79? Both 13 and 79 as separate rows? (13+79=92)? ...? 2 3 13? 42? ...?
However, the following two queries make this clear, and will not cause the error:
-
Using an aggregate
SELECT A, COUNT(B) AS T1, SUM(B) AS B FROM T2 GROUP BY A
would return:
A T1 B 1 2 92 2 3 68
-
Adding the column to the
GROUP BY
listSELECT A, COUNT(B) AS T1, B FROM T2 GROUP BY A, B
would return:
A T1 B 1 1 13 1 1 79 2 2 13 2 1 42