bug: Unnest still does not work for some cases

[rad-pat]

Search before asking

• I had searched in the issues and found no similar issues.

Version

v1.2.659-nightly

What's Wrong?

Following on from #16797
The SQL below still does not work

create or replace table t1 (col1 string, col2 string);
insert into t1 values ('test', 'a1,a2');

-- does not work
select t.col1 as col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ',')) as col2
from t1 as t
group by t.col1 as col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ',')) as col2;

And also this SQL additionally does not work

select distinct unnest(split(coalesce(NULL, 'N/A'), ',')) as c1

How to Reproduce?

No response

Are you willing to submit PR?

• Yes I am willing to submit a PR!

[b41sh]

Hi @rad-pat thanks for report this bug.
AS can't used in group by clause. you can write the SQL like this

select t.col1 as col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ',')) as col2
from t1 as t
group by col1, col2;

[rad-pat]

Thanks @b41sh. The AS clause in GROUP BY is processed fine in Postgres/Greenplum. It is what is created from SQLAlchemy output. I will have to see if we can adjust this somehow.

[rad-pat]

Sorry, it seems that SQLAlchemy does not actually output the alias, but it does output the expression and it seems like that fails:

Also, the docs suggest that expression can be used in GROUP BY clause

select t.col1 as col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ',')) as col2
from t1 as t
group by t.col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ','));

SQL Error: Error executing query: SQL: select t.col1 as col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ',')) as col2
from t1 as t
group by t.col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ',')) Query failed: QueryErrors{code=1065, message=error: 
  --> SQL:3:18
  |
1 | select t.col1 as col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ',')) as col2
2 | from t1 as t
3 | group by t.col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ','))
  |                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ set-returning functions can only be used in SELECT

} cause: null

[b41sh]

Sorry, it seems that SQLAlchemy does not actually output the alias, but it does output the expression and it seems like that fails:

Also, the docs suggest that expression can be used in GROUP BY clause

select t.col1 as col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ',')) as col2
from t1 as t
group by t.col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ','));

SQL Error: Error executing query: SQL: select t.col1 as col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ',')) as col2
from t1 as t
group by t.col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ',')) Query failed: QueryErrors{code=1065, message=error: 
  --> SQL:3:18
  |
1 | select t.col1 as col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ',')) as col2
2 | from t1 as t
3 | group by t.col1, unnest(split(t.col2, ','))
  |                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ set-returning functions can only be used in SELECT

} cause: null

This is indeed a problem, I will fix this to allow set returning function in the group by clause.