group by and SQL Standards

The SQL standards for group by are more restrictive than the default SAP ASE standard.

The SQL standard requires that:

The columns in a select list to be in the group by expression or to be arguments of aggregate functions.
A group by expression can contain only column names in the select list, but not those used only as arguments for vector aggregates.

Several Transact-SQL extensions (described in the following sections) relax these restrictions. However, complex result sets may be more difficult to understand. If you set the fipsflagger option as follows, you will receive a warning message stating that Transact-SQL extensions are used:

set fipsflagger on

For more information about the fipsflagger option, see the set command in the Reference Manual: Commands.