This made may day. Been banging my head on this one for a few hours.

I am not sure if it helps with the issue I had, but totally happy with the awesome tip you threw in. Karma is the least I could do. Thanks bud.

Yes, I went with the view ! Thanks! CTE feels a lot like a "view"? I assume it is more efficient, maybe the view offers the advantage of being "reusable" by multipe queries without duplication?

As a dev who optimizes php / bash code as a living, I appreciate saving 2 functions calls ie there is no such thing as a "slight" optimisation, it is the sum of such details that bring efficiency. Thanks bud. I am diving deeper into sql tasks lately, this sometimes puts me a bit out of my comfort zone, but I am totally enjoying the ride.