Windowed functions do not support constants as ORDER BY clause expressions.

Error Message:
Msg 5309, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Windowed functions do not support constants as ORDER BY clause expressions.

Severity level:
16.

Description:
This error message appears when you try to use a constant expression in the ORDER BY clause of a windowed function.

Consequences:
The T-SQL statement can be parsed, but causes the error at runtime.

Resolution:
Errors of the Severity Level 16 are generated by the user and can be fixed by the SQL Server user. The statement cannot be executed this way. You must remove the constant expression from the ORDER BY clause of the windowed function.

Versions:
This error message was introduced with SQL Server 2005.

Example(s):
USE tempdb;
GO
IF OBJECT_ID(‘tempdb..#t’) > 0
 DROP TABLE #t
GO
CREATE TABLE #t
(
 id INT
)
INSERT INTO #t SELECT 2
UNION ALL SELECT 3
GO
SELECT id, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY ‘a’)
  FROM #t

Remarks:
In the above example we try to use the constant expression ‘a’ in the ORDER BY clause of the windowed function ROW_NUMBER. This raises the error.

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