Bug, feature, quirk? HELP

I tried the following command

db=> SELECT DISTINCT name, city FROM table ORDER BY trim(table.name);
ERROR: For SELECT DISTINCT, ORDER BY expressions must appear in target

list

Try:

SELECT DISTINCT trim(name) AS name,city FROM table ORDER BY name ;

And if that doesn't work:

SELECT DISTINCT trim(name),city FROM table ORDER BY trim(name) ;

"Stoppel, Brett W" <bstoppel@ku.edu> writes:

I tried the following command
db=> SELECT DISTINCT name, city FROM table ORDER BY trim(table.name);
ERROR: For SELECT DISTINCT, ORDER BY expressions must appear in target list

Are there work arounds?

What's wrong with doing what the message suggests?
SELECT DISTINCT trim(name), city FROM table ORDER BY trim(name);

Should I just give up for now (i.e. wait for 7.1+n to come out)?

Don't hold your breath. The reason for the restriction is that the
results are ambiguous without it --- maybe not terribly ambiguous in
this particular case, but it's easy to create examples where you have
no idea what values are to be used for the sort. For example
SELECT DISTINCT foo, bar FROM table ORDER BY baz;

regards, tom lane

Thanks Bill, Len, and Tom:

You suggestion of

select distinct trim(name) as foo .... order by trim(name);

works wonderfully.

I do have another question about this though. Why does it this command work

select name as foo .... order by trim(name);

when this does not

select distinct name as foo .... order by trim(name);

Once again, thanks a million.

Brett