Duplicate column names

A former colleague from my MySQL AB days asked me about
SELECT pk, SUM(amount) AS pk FROM t ORDER BY pk;
should the duplicate use of the name PK be illegal?

My reply is: A relational-database expert deplores it in the select list; the SQL standard says it’s conceptually illegal in the order-by clause; MySQL and MariaDB handle it in an odd way; the Ocelot GUI for MySQL and MariaDB doesn’t flag it.

A relational-database expert deplores

CJ.Date, in Date On Databases, Writings 2000-2006, has a multi-page section about “Duplicate Column Names”. I’ll just quote the firmest negatives.

… we can avoid the duplicate names if we want to. The problem is, we don’t have to, and SQL does not have to deal with the possibility that a given table might have column names that aren’t unique. As an aside, I should explain that … we don’t have to use the “AS column name” construct is because it wasn’t part of the original standard (it was introduced with SQL:1992), and compatibility therefore dictates that its use has to be optional. (I should also note in passing that — believe it or not — names introduced by AS don’t have to be unique!

*Every SQL table has a left-to-right column ordering *Every column in every named SQL table (i.e. base table or view) has a user-known name, and that name is unique within the table in question. But neither of these properties holds, in general, for unnamed tables (i.e. intermediate and final result tables). … I’d like to point out that duplicate and missing column names both constitute a fairly egregious violation of The Naming Principle

So nothing’s ambiguous about Mr Date’s evaluation, but he is acknowledging that SQL won’t be changing due to compatibility with old standards, and at least it wouldn’t allow duplicate column names in the select list of a CREATE VIEW statement.

The SQL standard says it might be illegal

The standard says this about Concepts:

This Clause describes concepts that are, for the most part, specified precisely in other parts of ISO/IEC 9075. In any case of discrepancy, the specification in the other part is to be presumed correct.

So we usually expect a specific syntax rule, but if it’s missing, we maybe can look at Concepts.

And this is SQL:2016, Foundation, 4.13 Columns, fields, and attributes, in the Concepts section:

Sometimes the Syntax Rules forbid two elements at different ordinal positions from having equivalent names (particularly when created through an SQL schema statement). When two elements with equivalent names are permitted, then the element name is ambiguous and attempts to reference either element by name will raise a syntax error.

That suggests that if pk appears twice in select list then ORDER BY pk; should fail, but it’s not explicitly stated in the Syntax Rules. This in contrast with GROUP BY, which has a clear Syntax Rule, that is, “Each grouping column reference shall unambiguously reference a column of the table resulting from the from clause.” Perhaps when I was on the ANSI committee I should have asked why Syntax Rule for ORDER BY doesn’t also say “unambiguously”, but it’s too late now.

MySQL and MariaDB handle it in an odd way

I tried variations of the syntax with MySQL 8.0.31 and MariaDB 10.10.1, sql_mode=only_full_group_by is not true, sql_mode=ansi_quotes is true. They both return the same results.

CREATE TABLE t (pk INT, amount INT); INSERT INTO t VALUES (1,2), (2,1),(1,2),(2,1); SELECT pk, (amount) AS pk FROM t ORDER BY pk;
Result: Error 1052 (23000) Column ‘pk’ in order clause is ambiguous
SQLSTATE values starting with 23 are for “integrity constraint violation”, so it would be better to have something starting with 42 (syntax error or access violation), I described good old ’42’ in an earlier blog post. However, the error message is good and consistent with standard SQL.

SELECT pk, SUM(amount) AS pk FROM t ORDER BY pk;
Result: 1,6.
SELECT pk, 5 AS pk, amount FROM t ORDER BY pk,amount DESC;
Result: (1,5,2),(1,5,2),(2,5,1),(2,5,1)
SELECT pk, (SELECT SUM(amount) AS pk FROM t) AS "pk" FROM t ORDER BY pk;
Result: (1,6),(2,6),(1,6),(2,6)
These results are harmless — there’s either an implied grouping or a literal for the main sort, so they’re always the same value, so they can be optimized away. Nevertheless, they’re inconsistent — if “Column ‘pk’ in order clause is ambiguous” is detectable, and it’s a syntax error not a runtime error, it shouldn’t have been ignored.

SELECT pk * - 1 AS pk, pk FROM t ORDER by pk;
Result: (-2,2),(-2,2),(-1,1),(-1,1)
SELECT pk, pk * - 1 AS pk FROM t ORDER by pk;
Result: (2,-2),(2,-2),(1,-1),(1,-1)
These results are odd, they show that we’re ordering by the pk that has an AS clause, regardless of which column is first in the select list.

SELECT SUM(amount) AS pk, pk FROM t GROUP BY pk ORDER BY pk;
Result: (2,2),(4,1)
Also there is a warning: Column ‘pk’ in group statement is ambiguous. But it does succeed, and once again the item with the AS clause is preferred. This syntax is explicitly declared illegal in standard SQL.

SELECT * FROM (SELECT 1 AS a, 1 AS a) AS t1, (SELECT 1 AS a, 1 AS a) AS t2;
Result: Error 1060 (42S21) Duplicate column name ‘a’
This is the right result, and the SQLSTATE is better because it starts with ’42’.
The reason it’s correct is that Trudy Pelzer long ago reported a bug with duplicate names in subqueries, which are illegal due to a different item in the standard, and Oleksandr Byelkin fixed it.

The Ocelot GUI for MySQL and MariaDB doesn’t flag it

An obvious thought is: since ocelotgui recognizes MySQL/MariaDB syntax, and gives hints or autocompletions while the user is entering a statement, should I be adding code to catch this? After all, we stop most illegal syntax before it goes to the server.

But I’m wary. The behaviour that I describe here is undocumented, so it could change without warning, and besides who are we to reject what the server would accept? It won’t be at the top of the “To Do” pile.

Speaking of “To Do” piles, ocelotgui 1.8 has now been released, and is downloadable from github.

, November 27, 2022. Category: MySQL / MariaDB, Standard SQL.

About pgulutzan

Co-author of four computer books. Software Architect at MySQL/Sun/Oracle from 2003-2011, and at HP for a little while after that. Currently with Ocelot Computer Services Inc. in Edmonton Canada.