Using an Alias column in the where clause in Postgresql

Question

I have a query like this:

SELECT
    jobs.*, 
    (
        CASE
            WHEN lead_informations.state IS NOT NULL THEN lead_informations.state
            ELSE 'NEW'
        END
    ) AS lead_state
FROM
    jobs
    LEFT JOIN lead_informations ON
        lead_informations.job_id = jobs.id
        AND
        lead_informations.mechanic_id = 3
WHERE
    lead_state = 'NEW'

Which gives the following error:

PGError: ERROR:  column "lead_state" does not exist
LINE 1: ...s.id AND lead_informations.mechanic_id = 3 WHERE (lead_state...

In MySql this is valid, but apparently not in Postgresql. From what I can gather, the reason is that the SELECT part of the query is evaluated later than the WHERE part. Is there a common workaround for this problem?

Answer 1

I struggled on the same issue and "mysql syntax is non-standard" is not a valid argument in my opinion. PostgreSQL adds handy non-standard extensions as well, for example "INSERT ... RETURNING ..." to get auto ids after inserts. Also, repeating large queries is not an elegant solution.

However, I found the WITH statement very helpful. It sort of creates a temporary view within the query which you can use like a usual table then. I'm not sure if I have rewritten your JOIN correctly, but in general it should work like this:

WITH jobs_refined AS (
    SELECT
        jobs.*,
        (SELECT CASE WHEN lead_informations.state IS NOT NULL THEN lead_informations.state ELSE 'NEW' END) AS lead_state
    FROM jobs
    LEFT JOIN lead_informations
        ON lead_informations.job_id = jobs.id
        AND lead_informations.mechanic_id = 3
)
SELECT *
FROM jobs_refined
WHERE lead_state = 'NEW'