Referring to a Column Alias in a WHERE Clause

Question

SELECT logcount, logUserID, maxlogtm
   , DATEDIFF(day, maxlogtm, GETDATE()) AS daysdiff
FROM statslogsummary
WHERE daysdiff > 120

I get

"invalid column name daysdiff".

Maxlogtm is a datetime field. It's the little stuff that drives me crazy.

Answer 1

You could refer to column alias but you need to define it using CROSS/OUTER APPLY:

SELECT s.logcount, s.logUserID, s.maxlogtm, c.daysdiff
FROM statslogsummary s
CROSS APPLY (SELECT DATEDIFF(day, s.maxlogtm, GETDATE()) AS daysdiff) c
WHERE c.daysdiff > 120;

DBFiddle Demo

Pros:

• single definition of expression(easier to maintain/no need of copying-paste)
• no need for wrapping entire query with CTE/outerquery
• possibility to refer in WHERE/GROUP BY/ORDER BY
• possible better performance(single execution)