Re: Can column name aliases be supported?

On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 8:19 AM, Gauthier, Dave <dave(dot)gauthier(at)intel(dot)com> wrote:
> I have a table with a column called "last_name". I have one customer who
> likes to articulate queries and updates for this using column name
> "last_name" (no problem there) but another who likes to call it "lname" and
> yet another who likes to call it "surname". So 3 different names for the
> same physical column in the table.

Here's an out-of-the-box suggestion.

Drop the column altogether and have a single column "name". Trying to
divide names up never works properly. Does "surname" mean family name?
Not all cultures put the family name last. Is "last_name" simply the
part of the name after the last space?

Save yourself a whole lot of trouble and just store names in single
fields. And you dodge the field naming issue at the same time!

ChrisA