I am using the following to create a database:
use master
IF DB_ID(N'delete') IS NULL
CREATE DATABASE delete
but get an error
Msg 156, Level 15, State 1, Line 1
Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'delete'
because delete is a reserved word. But is there no way of creating a database named "delete"?
As you are seeing, delete is a reserved word in most SQL databases.
You could quote the identifier. In T-SQL, which you seem to be using, you would do this with square brackets:
CREATE DATABASE [delete];
But I would not recommend that. From thereon, you will need to quote the database name each and every time you use it - if you fail to do that, you might encounter non-intuitive error messages. As I see it, there are enough words in the English language that we can avoid the very small subset of SQL reserved words (I would extend that to keywords too).
How about this, for example:
CREATE DATABASE db_delete;
Delete is a reserved word, try [delete] instead of delete or choose a better database name e.g. itemstodelete?
Related
I was creating a database using GUI also using SQL Script, but I am getting this error:
Msg 208, Level 16, State 1, Procedure alert_create_database, Line 11
Invalid object name 'inserted'.
Could anyone please help me with this issue?
This will be really appreciated.
Thank you
Inserted is reserved keyword. You have to quote it:
[inserted]
When you use triggers or the output clause (e.g. in an insert or update statement), you can get the rows that were inserted and the rows that were deleted during the atomic operation. These are like temporary tables and are called inserted and deleted. They are therefore reserved words - i.e. they are part of the SQL language.
In the same way that you cannot create a table or other object called select, where, datetime etc. because these are reserved words, you cannot create a column called inserted.
However, if you add parentheses around a reserved word then you can do it as the parenthesis effectively changes the name of the object you are creating. The downside is that these parentheses are always required on these objects and the use of reserved words makes the code harder to understand.
Try to think about what the object really is. i.e. it isn't just "inserted", it is an insertedSOMETHING, so call the object that instead.
I've got an old schema that needs to be removed. Problem is it's got the special character \ in the name (believe me I'm no fan of special characters in schema names). I have tried commands like the following
DROP SCHEMA databasename."COMPANY\user1"
where COMPANY\user1 is the name of the schema.
However, I end up getting errors like the following
SQL Error: Incorrect syntax near '.'.`
I've dropped all of the tables inside of the schema, so I don't think there should be any objects remaining. I had success dropping tables with the following command
DROP TABLE databasename."COMPANY\user1".persontable;
Any idea why my attempt to drop the schema is failing? I'm sure it's something obvious I'm missing in the syntax.
Have you tried using square braces?
drop schema databasename.[COMPANY\user1]
Actually, this doesn't work, because drop schema doesn't accept the database (as sort of implied by the syntax in the documentation). Just go into the database and do:
drop schema [COMPANY\user1]
This works for me with names that have unusual characters.
We had another developer come through and complete some work for us. Unfortunately he didn’t work well within our team and management let him go.
Because of this now I’m stuck debugging his code and undoing work that was done. He did not document his code (one of the reasons he was let go), rarely notating anything, therefore I have no idea where to begin looking.
When I run a basic SELECT on two specific tables in our DB:
SELECT * FROM table_name
Using SQL Server Management Studio I get this...
Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Invalid column name 'eventTime'.
There was an eventTime column but wasn’t necessary and wasn't being used in any PHP file, however it seems somehow directly tied to the table now and I have no idea where to look to find it. The error message provided is pointing to my SELECT statement, but there is nothing wrong with it, nor does it even reference the eventTime column.
I’ve looked and there don’t seem to be any triggers or stored procedures referencing this table. Is there another way I can try to track this down?
This sounds like a hard'ish problem. Here are some ideas.
My first thought is that table_name is a view, and somehow the view has gotten out-of-sync with the underlying table definitions. I have seen problems with types in some circumstances. I imagine the same could happen with column names.
The next thought is that table_name has computed columns. In this case, the computed columns could be using a function and the function call could be generating the error. I cannot think of any other way to run code with a simple select.
I don't think the problem would be a foreign key constraint unless. So, a third option is that a foreign key constraint is referencing a table in the same database but a different schema. The different schema could have permissions that make the table inaccessible.
For any of these, scripting out the definition in SSMS will help you fix the problem.
Is there a column comment syntax that allows me to specify a column comment directly where I declare the column in the create table statement (i.e. inline)? The 11g spec does not mention anything, on another page something is mentioned but I could not get it to work. There is a way to specify comments after creating the table, but I think it is annoying that the comment is separated from the field definition. I am looking for something like this (which does not work):
create table whatever (
field number(15,0) primary key comment 'primary key generated from sequence pkseq',
...
)
I'm afraid the "annoying" COMMENT ON syntax is the only way of doing this. SQL Server, PostgreSQL and DB2 use the same syntax (even though, as far as I know, there is no ANSI standard syntax for adding comments to database objects).
MySQL supports the way you would like it to work. I agree it would be a nicer mechanism, but in my experience so few people use comments at all that I doubt Oracle will ever change it.
I'm afraid it can only be done after table creation, using the comment on column ... is '' syntax.
A workaround to this annoying syntax is also to view and edit the tables in Oracles SQLExplorer. It contains a wizard that allows you to edit the comments right next to the columns. It even allows easy creation of alter table scripts.
My procedure when editing tables is to enter the changes in the wizard without actually executing them, then go to its DDL tab and retrieve the SQL from there (as update, not full create script) and press cancel on the wizard. Then I put the created SQL into the SQL script I am writing. Only when I am finished with the script I execute everything; I do never make any changes with the wizard itself.
Test on sqlplus (or similar), but the syntax is as follows:
-- assuming you have privileges
COMMENT ON COLUMN SCHEMA1.TABLE1.COL1
IS 'My comment'
-- then you can double check like this
SELECT * FROM all_col_comments WHERE
(OWNER, TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME)
IN (('SCHEMA1','TABLE1','COL1'));
Note that the comment will now show in SQLDeveloper (or Toad or whatever env you have) until you reopen said table's properties.
Similar syntax can be used to annotate tables, indexes and materialized views. [source: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14200/statements_4009.htm]
I understand similar syntax exists for MySQL and others, but it is not proper ANSI. It's very useful, though.
I've just wasted the past two hours of my life trying to create a table with an auto incrementing primary key bases on this tutorial, The tutorial is great the issue I've been encountering is that the Create Target fails if I have a column which is a timestamp and a table that is called timestamp in the same table...
Why doesn't oracle flag this as being an issue when I create the table?
Here is the Sequence of commands I enter:
Creating the Table:
CREATE TABLE myTable
(id NUMBER PRIMARY KEY,
field1 TIMESTAMP(6),
timeStamp NUMBER,
);
Creating the Sequence:
CREATE SEQUENCE test_sequence
START WITH 1
INCREMENT BY 1;
Creating the trigger:
CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER test_trigger
BEFORE INSERT
ON myTable
REFERENCING NEW AS NEW
FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN
SELECT test_sequence.nextval INTO :NEW.ID FROM dual;
END;
/
Here is the error message I get:
ORA-06552: PL/SQL: Compilation unit analysis terminated
ORA-06553: PLS-320: the declaration of the type of this expression is incomplete or malformed
Any combination that does not have the two lines with a the word "timestamp" in them works fine. I would have thought the syntax would be enough to differentiate between the keyword and a column name.
As I've said I don't understand why the table is created fine but oracle falls over when I try to create the trigger...
CLARIFICATION
I know that the issue is that there is a column called timestamp which may or may not be a keyword. MY issue is why it barfed when I tried to create a trigger and not when I created the table, I would have at least expected a warning.
That said having used Oracle for a few hours, it seems a lot less verbose in it's error reporting, Maybe just because I'm using the express version though.
If this is a bug in Oracle how would one who doesn't have a support contract go about reporting it? I'm just playing around with the express version because I have to migrate some code from MySQL to Oracle.
There is a note on metalink about this (227615.1) extract below:
# symptom: Creating Trigger fails
# symptom: Compiling a procedure fails
# symptom: ORA-06552: PL/SQL: %s
# symptom: ORA-06553: PLS-%s: %s
# symptom: PLS-320: the declaration of the type of this expression is incomplete or malformed
# cause: One of the tables being references was created with a column name that is one of the datatypes (reserved key word). Even though the field is not referenced in the PL/SQL SQL statements, this error will still be produced.
fix:
Workaround:
1. Rename the column to a non-reserved word.
2. Create a view and alias the column to a different name.
TIMESTAMP is not listed in the Oracle docs as a reserved word (which is surprising).
It is listed in the V$RESERVED_WORDS data dictionary view, but its RESERVED flag is set to 'N'.
It might be a bug in the trigger processing. I would say this is a good one for Oracle support.
You've hinted at the answer yourself. You're using timestamp as a column name but it's also a keyword. Change the column name to something else (eg xtimestamp) and the trigger compiles.
Well, I'm not totally sure about it, but I think this happens because the SQL code used to manipulate and access database objects is interpreted by some interpreter different form the one used to interpret PL/SQL code.
Have in mind that SQL an PL/SQL are different things, and so they are processed differently. So, I think there is some error in one interpreter, just not sure which one is.
Instead of having Oracle maintain a view, use EXECUTE IMMEDIATE (i.e. if 'Rename the column to a non-reserved word' is not an option.
You can execute via EXECUTE IMMEDIATE. IT's not better way but work's and avoid column rename.
In my case rename column will be a caotic way