SELECT
        col1 as named_column,
        sum(col2),
        col3
    FROM table
    group by 1, col3
    order by col1

Sometimes I find that Postgres has unintuitive behavior when writing queries. Or maybe I have non-conventional thinking when it comes to writing SQL. The query as I have written above doesn’t actually work, it won’t execute because col1 is renamed to named_column.

How about this? SELECT col1 as named_column, sum(col2), col3 FROM table group by col1, col3 order by col1

Well this runs at least, but then it doesn’t actually do what I wanted. When you rename the output using a SELECT AS, you will need to pass it onto the group and order by. But if you’re lazy, then this is the lazy (less typing) solution:

    SELECT
        col1 as named_column,
        sum(col2),
        col3
    FROM table
    group by 1, col3
    order by 1

Downsides of this notation is that at a quick glance you don’t see the column names.