Using column alias in WHERE clause of MySQL query produces an error

user_85383 0
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The query I'm running is as follows, however I'm getting this error:

#1054 - Unknown column 'guaranteed_postcode' in 'IN/ALL/ANY subquery'

SELECT `users`.`first_name`, `users`.`last_name`, `users`.`email`,
SUBSTRING(`locations`.`raw`,-6,4) AS `guaranteed_postcode`
FROM `users` LEFT OUTER JOIN `locations`
ON `users`.`id` = `locations`.`user_id`
WHERE `guaranteed_postcode` NOT IN #this is where the fake col is being used
(
 SELECT `postcode` FROM `postcodes` WHERE `region` IN
 (
  'australia'
 )
)

My question is: why am I unable to use a fake column in the where clause of the same DB query?

mysql-error-1054 mysql sql
7 Answers

You can only use column aliases in GROUP BY, ORDER BY, or HAVING clauses.

Standard SQL doesn't allow you to refer to a column alias in a WHERE clause. This restriction is imposed because when the WHERE code is executed, the column value may not yet be determined.

Copied from MySQL documentation

As pointed in the comments, using HAVING instead may do the work. Make sure to give a read at this question too: WHERE vs HAVING.

user_706160

As Victor pointed out, the problem is with the alias. This can be avoided though, by putting the expression directly into the WHERE x IN y clause:

SELECT `users`.`first_name`,`users`.`last_name`,`users`.`email`,SUBSTRING(`locations`.`raw`,-6,4) AS `guaranteed_postcode`
FROM `users` LEFT OUTER JOIN `locations`
ON `users`.`id` = `locations`.`user_id`
WHERE SUBSTRING(`locations`.`raw`,-6,4) NOT IN #this is where the fake col is being used
(
 SELECT `postcode` FROM `postcodes` WHERE `region` IN
 (
  'australia'
 )
)

However, I guess this is very inefficient, since the subquery has to be executed for every row of the outer query.

user_1123080
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