- A refinement to the logic which adds columns to the resulting SQL when

:meth:`.Query.distinct` is combined with :meth:`.Query.order_by` such
that columns which are already present will not be added
a second time, even if they are labeled with a different name.
Regardless of this change, the extra columns added to the SQL have
never been returned in the final result, so this change only impacts
the string form of the statement as well as its behavior when used in
a Core execution context.   Additionally, columns are no longer added
when the DISTINCT ON format is used, provided the query is not
wrapped inside a subquery due to joined eager loading.
fixes #3641

1 files changed, 22 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/lib/sqlalchemy/sql/util.py b/lib/sqlalchemy/sql/util.py
index 1dcf0ee66..7e294d85f 100644
--- a/lib/sqlalchemy/sql/util.py
+++ b/lib/sqlalchemy/sql/util.py
@@ -176,6 +176,28 @@ def unwrap_order_by(clause):
     return result
 
 
+def expand_column_list_from_order_by(collist, order_by):
+    """Given the columns clause and ORDER BY of a selectable,
+    return a list of column expressions that can be added to the collist
+    corresponding to the ORDER BY, without repeating those already
+    in the collist.
+
+    """
+    cols_already_present = set([
+        col.element if col._order_by_label_element is not None
+        else col for col in collist
+    ])
+
+    return [
+        col for col in
+        chain(*[
+            unwrap_order_by(o)
+            for o in order_by
+        ])
+        if col not in cols_already_present
+    ]
+
+
 def clause_is_present(clause, search):
     """Given a target clause and a second to search within, return True
     if the target is plainly present in the search without any