Sean Lange (4/8/2014)

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Eirikur Eiriksson (4/8/2014)

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hisakimatama (4/8/2014)

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Aha, so it doesn't :-). I've always declared CTEs with the column declarations, and by the wonderful problems of habit, it stuck as "the" way to do it. Well, I learned something that should make syntax a good bit clearer myself 😀

I prefer it, makes the code more readable.

😎

That is just an opinion. There are times when it makes sense and times when it doesn't.

However, every column in a cte MUST be named. If you have a derived column of some sort if MUST have a name.

In the following you will see I have a column with the constant 'asdf' but the column has no name. This will not parse.

with MyCte as

(

select top 5 'asdf'

, name

from sys.objects

)

select * from MyCte;

But, simply add a column alias and it is fine.

with MyCte as

(

select top 5 'asdf' as MyColumn

, name

from sys.objects

)

select * from MyCte;