Each GROUP BY expression must contain at least one column that is not an outer reference

Question

What am I doing wrong here? I am getting this error on:

SELECT LEFT(SUBSTRING(batchinfo.datapath, PATINDEX(\'%[0-9][0-9][0-9]%\', batchinfo.datapath), 8000),         


        

Answer 1

When you're using GROUP BY, you need to also use aggregate functions for the columns not inside your group by clause.

I don't know exactly what you're trying to do, but I guess this would work:

select 
    LEFT(SUBSTRING(batchinfo.datapath, PATINDEX('%[0-9][0-9][0-9]%', batchinfo.datapath), 8000),
    PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%', SUBSTRING(batchinfo.datapath, PATINDEX('%[0-9][0-9][0-9]%', batchinfo.datapath), 8000))-1),
    qvalues.name,
    qvalues.compound,
    MAX(qvalues.rid)
from
    batchinfo join qvalues on batchinfo.rowid=qvalues.rowid
where
    LEN(datapath)>4
group by
    LEFT(SUBSTRING(batchinfo.datapath, PATINDEX('%[0-9][0-9][0-9]%', batchinfo.datapath), 8000),
    PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%', SUBSTRING(batchinfo.datapath, PATINDEX('%[0-9][0-9][0-9]%', batchinfo.datapath), 8000))-1),
    qvalues.name,
    qvalues.compound
having
    rid!=MAX(rid)

Edit: What I'm trying to do here is a group by with all fields but rid. If that's not what you want, what you need to do in order to have a valid SQL statement is adding an aggregate function call for each removed group by field...