Return Variable Name As Part Of Select Statement.

hey all,

I have the following query:

ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[sp_SelectMostRecentArticle]

AS
BEGIN

DECLARE @article_id INT
SELECT @article_id = (
SELECT TOP 1 article_id
FROM article
ORDER BY article_id DESC
)

DECLARE @comment_count INT
SELECT @comment_count = (
SELECT COUNT(comment_id)
FROM comment
JOIN article ON article_id = comment_article_id
GROUP BY article_id
HAVING article_id = @article_id
)


SELECT TOP 1 article_id, article_author_id,
article_title, article_body, article_post_date,
article_edit_date, article_status, article_author_id
article_author_ip, author_display_name,
category_id, category_name--, comment_count AS @comment_count

FROM article

JOIN author ON author_id = article_author_id
JOIN category ON category_id = article_category_id

GROUP BY article_id, article_title, article_body, article_post_date,
article_edit_date, article_status, article_author_ip,article_author_id,
author_display_name, category_id, category_name

HAVING article_id = @article_id

END
GO

as you can see, im trying to return a comment_count value, but the only way I can do this is by defining the variable.

I have had to do it this way, because I cannot say COUNT(comment.comment_id) AS comment_count or it returns an error that it cant reference the comment.comment_id.

But when change it to FROM article, comment; I get errors about the article_author_id and article_comment_id.

And i cant add a join, because it would return the amount of rows of the comment...

unless someone could help with what i Just decribed (as i would prefer to do it this way), how would i return the variable value as part of the select statement?

Cheers