How to merge two tables with having same column name

Question

select *
INTO [dbo].[aTable]
from dbo.bt btg left join dbo.btt bta on btg.specialty = bta.specialty 
order by 1, 6

I am getting the following error:

Column names in each table must be unique. Column name 'Specialty' in table 'aTable' is specified more than once.

Columns for bt table:

Location
Specialty
Provider

Column for btt table:

Specialty
Topic

I am trying to get Location, Specialty, Provider, and (join all topics for the specialty).

Answer 1

The issue here is the "Select *", which will select all fields in your result set. Try specifying the specific fields that you want to insert.

For instance:

SELECT Location, btg.Specialty, Provider, Topic
INTO INTO [dbo].[aTable]
from dbo.bt btg left join dbo.btt bta on btg.specialty = bta.specialty 
order by 1, 6

Answer 2

Alias name is all you need to mention to avoid conflict when you join two tables with same column names.

SELECT btg.Location, btg.Specialty, btg.Provider,btg.Topic
INTO INTO [dbo].[aTable]
from dbo.bt btg join dbo.btt bta on btg.specialty = bta.specialty 
order by 1, 6

Answer 3

you can do something like this:

select btg.*, topic
INTO [dbo].[aTable]
from dbo.bt btg left join dbo.btt bta on btg.specialty = bta.specialty