Creating Column Aliases

You can create aliases for column names to make it easier to work with column names, calculations, and summary values. For example, you can create a column alias to:

• Create a column name, such as "Total Amount," for an expression such as (quantity * unit_price) or for an aggregate function. The alias is used in the column heading in the Results pane.
  
  
• Create a shortened form of a column name, such as "d_id" for "discounts.stor_id." Using a column alias is particularly useful when the query contains multiple tables, because you can create short aliases to refer to fully qualified column names.

After you have defined a column alias, you can use the alias in a Select query to specify query output.

Note   Column aliases do not appear in the list of data columns in the Columns column of the Grid pane. However, you can type in the name of an existing column alias to reference it in the Grid pane.

To create a column alias

1. In the Grid pane, locate the row containing the data column for which you want to create an alias, and if necessary, mark it for output. If the data column is not already in the grid, add it.
   
   
2. In the Alias column for that row, enter the alias. The alias must follow all naming conventions for SQL (for example, it cannot be a reserved word). If the alias name you enter contains spaces, the Query Designer automatically puts quotation marks around it.