An issue with specifying a column "Percent" in SQL Select query - sql

There is a table with a column name PERCENT. I need to run an ordinary SELECT query:
SELECT *
FROM <my_table>
WHERE PERCENT = 100
However, I get this error message:
Msg 156, Level 15, State 1, Line 2
Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'PERCENT'
Is there a way to indicate a column so the system accepts it as a column name instead of a function?

PERCENT is a reserved word. Use escape characters:
SELECT *
FROM <my_table>
WHERE [PERCENT] = 100
It is used, for instance, with TOP as in TOP 100 PERCENT.

Enclose the column name in square brackets (i.e. [PERCENT]) or the ANSI/ISO standard double quotes (i.e. "PERCENT"). This will allow you to use reserved T-SQL keywords in identifiers.
I suggest one avoid using reserved keywords as object or column names to avoid this requirement.

Related

Query columns containing special characters or starting with digits with SQL statement in DolphinDB

Server version: 2.00.8 2022.09.28
I obtain a table re with pivot by in DolphinDB and the generated column names contain special characters.
date = take(2021.08.01 2021.08.02 2021.08.03, 12)
sym = take(["IBM N", "_MSFTN", "3_GOOGS", ""], 12).sort()
value = 1..12
t=table(date, sym, value)
re = select value from t pivot by date, sym
When I query table re with a select statement,
select 3_GOOGS from re
An error message “Can't recognize token 3_GOOGS“ is raised. How can I fix the query?
When column names containing special characters or starting with digits are used in SQL statements, they should be enclosed in double quotes and use an underscore as an identifier before it in DolphinDB. For example: _”IBM.N”, _”000001.SH”. So your query can be modified as:
select _"3_GOOGS" from re

Oracle SQL Group BY via column substr

SELECT SUBSTR(PRODID,1, 4) AS [PROD4], COUNT(*) AS [NumberOfRows]
FROM [sch].[ProdTable]
GROUP BY SUBSTR(PRODID,1, 4)
We're writing a simple select that would count how many of our products have the same first 4 characters. Our Product IDs are 10 digits/characters.
When running this, however, we get:
SQL Error [936] [42000]: ORA-00936: missing expression
Any idea how to make this work?
The problem is with the square brackets. Oracle does not support that syntax. These identifiers probably do not require quoting anyway, so:
SELECT SUBSTR(PRODID,1, 4) PROD4, COUNT(*) NumberOfRows
FROM sch.ProdTable
GROUP BY SUBSTR(PRODID,1, 4)
If you really need to quote the identifiers (say, if the table name was created as a case-sensitive name, or you do want mixed-case column aliases), then you can use double quotes:
SELECT SUBSTR(PRODID,1, 4) PROD4, COUNT(*) "NumberOfRows"
FROM sch."ProdTable"
GROUP BY SUBSTR(PRODID,1, 4)
Just expanding a bit on #GMB's answer.
[sch].[ProdTable]
In Oracle, that's an incorrect syntax to refer an object. Don't enclose them in [] square brackets:
FROM sch.ProdTable
However, if you actually want to use square brackets for naming your objects(which would be really ugly) you could use quoted identifier. It begins and ends with double quotation marks ". This also makes then case sensitive, and must always be used with double quotation marks whenever you refer to that object.
create table "[t]" as select 'hi' as "[str]" from dual;
select * from "[t]";
[str]
-----
hi
In your SQL, unless your table is created that way, you don't need to that. You could still name your column's alias with square brackets using quoted-identifier:
select 'hi' as "[str]" from dual;
[str]
-----
hi

Creating a new attribute in Oracle database from two other attributes

I have a Classes table which is as follows:
Classes(classid, dept_code, course#, sect#, year, semester, limit, class_size, room, TA_B#)
The qeustion is:
Find the classid, dept_code and course# of each undergraduate class (i.e., course# < 500) that was offered in
Spring 2017. For each such class, also list the number of seats available (computed by limit – class_size)
under the header “seats_available”.
I tried this simple approach:
select classes.classid, classes.dept_code, classes.course#,
classes.limit-classes.class_size as'seats_available'
from classes
where limit>class_size and year='2017' and semester='Spring'and course# < 500;
0
But I am getting an error:
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00923: FROM keyword not found where expected
What am I missing? This error will go if I remove this code of line:classes.limit-classes.class_size as'seats_available'
I am using Oracle database
In the SQL standard identifiers need to be enclosed in double quotes ("). And the Oracle database complies with the standard there.
Single quotes (') are for character constants e.g. as you did in semester='Spring', they can not be used for identifiers like column names, table names or a column alias.
So you need to use:
classes.limit-classes.class_size as "seats_available"
You don't actually need the double quotes though, as your identifier does not contain any invalid characters, so
classes.limit-classes.class_size as seats_available
will work just as well
Unrelated, but: numbers should not be enclosed in single quotes 2017 is a number constant, '2017' is a string constant. So you should use where year = 2017 instead

Pull variables with spaces in between for SQL table using RODBC's sqlQuery

In my SQL Server database table there is one variable with spaces. I am trying to write one query in the RODBC::sqlQuery function but I am not able to use this variable.
I tried to use single quotes but that doesn't work.
I tried to use paste option and create one string for query but even that also did not work.
Following is the query:
p5 <-sqlQuery(con, 'SELECT
a.region,
a.Country,
a.Qtr_ID,
Net_VAT AS Variable_Type,
"Printing" AS [External_Segment],
SUM(a.VR_Value) AS Value
FROM
(SELECT
d.region,
d.Country,
dt.Qtr_ID,
SUM([Actuals YTD] / 1000000) AS VR_Value
FROM ZOOM_DATAMART.dbo.[New_BalSheet_Fact] a
INNER JOIN [dbo].[Buss_Area_Dim_V] b
ON a.Bus_Area_ID = b.Bus_Area_ID
AND b."GBU External Segment Description" = "Printing"
INNER JOIN [dbo].[BSR_Header_GA_Dim_V] c
ON a.BSR_HEADER_GA_KEY = c.BSR_HEADER_GA_KEY
AND c.[Group Account Identifier] IN (1291, 2150, 2151,
2152, 2153, 2154)
INNER JOIN [dbo].[Legal_Company_Dim_V] d
ON a.Legal_Cmp_Key = d.Legal_Cmp_Key
INNER JOIN dbo.Date_Dim dt
ON a.Date_key = dt.Date_key
AND dt.Max_month_Flag = 1
GROUP BY d.region,
dt.Qtr_ID,
d.Country
) a
GROUP BY a.region,
a.Country,
a.Qtr_ID)
The issue is happening with "GBU External Segment Description". I get following error:
chr [1:4] "42S22 207 [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Invalid column name 'Printing'." ...
Then I removed double quote from printing but still for "GBU External Segment Description" it doesn't accept and throws following error:
chr [1:3] "42000 102 [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Incorrect syntax near 'GBU External Segment Description'." ...
The error is not with the fieldname I believe, but with the varchar constant that you are looking for. You should be using single quotes, not double.
This:
a.Bus_Area_ID = b.Bus_Area_ID and b."GBU External Segment Description"= "Printing"
Should be this:
a.Bus_Area_ID = b.Bus_Area_ID and b.[GBU External Segment Description] = 'Printing'
Generally, String values in SQL are not wrapped in double quotes, but single quotes.
Also, in your first line:
p5 <-sqlQuery(con,'SELECT a.region,a.Country,a.Qtr_ID,Net_VAT as Variable_Type,"Printing" as [External_Segment]
Are you trying to output Printing as a constant result from this query? If so, and it is not a field name, then you should also wrap that in ' single quotes, not double. That is likely what is cauing the first error that you are seeing.
So that it becomes:
p5 <-sqlQuery(con,'SELECT a.region,a.Country,a.Qtr_ID,Net_VAT as Variable_Type,'Printing' as [External_Segment]
The previous comment on your question about wrapping fieldnames with [] is correct, you should use [] the square brackets to wrap field names with spaces in them.
This query should work:
p5 <-sqlQuery(con,'SELECT a.region,a.Country,a.Qtr_ID,Net_VAT as Variable_Type,\'Printing\' as [External_Segment]
,SUM(a.VR_Value) as Value
from
(SELECT d.region,d.Country,dt.Qtr_ID
,sum([Actuals YTD]/1000000) as VR_Value
FROM ZOOM_DATAMART.dbo.[New_BalSheet_Fact] a
inner join [dbo].[Buss_Area_Dim_V] b
on
a.Bus_Area_ID = b.Bus_Area_ID and b.[GBU External Segment Description]= \'Printing\'
inner join [dbo].[BSR_Header_GA_Dim_V] c
on
a.BSR_HEADER_GA_KEY= c.BSR_HEADER_GA_KEY and c.[Group Account Identifier] IN (1291,2150,2151,2152,2153,2154)
inner join [dbo].[Legal_Company_Dim_V] d
on a.Legal_Cmp_Key = d.Legal_Cmp_Key
inner join dbo.Date_Dim dt
on a.Date_key = dt.Date_key and dt.Max_month_Flag = 1
group by d.region,
dt.Qtr_ID
,d.Country
) a
Group BY
a.region
,a.Country
,a.Qtr_ID')
Hope this helps.
Overall, your main issue involves confusing and conflating identifiers and literals. As information, in ANSI-SQL (the formal, industry standard of the SQL language that most RDBMS's adhere to including SQL Server, Oracle, Postgres, etc.), single quotes and double quotes are used for different purposes.
Single quotes are used to enclose string literals within char, varchar, text data type columns such as 'Printing'. Your first error message actually points to Printing as the MSSQL engine attempted to search for a column name since you wrapped this value in double quotes.
Double quotes are used for identifiers including column names and table names such as c."Group Account Identifier". Your second error points to the use of qualifying a table alias, c, to a literal value since you wrapped this value in single quotes.
Below are few common uses of this type:
Double quotes explicitly impose case sensitivity. Specifically, when you wrap column names in double quotes, the same characters in camel case, lower case, and upper case render different values and an error will raise if they do not align to the actual case used in table creation (i.e., tbl."ColumnName" <> tbl."COLUMNNAME").
Double quotes help escape special characters (!##$%^&*?) and spaces. Hence, you can use c."Group Account Identifier" to identify the column. However, some RDBMS's have their own escaping symbols for special characters and spaces which are not ANSI standards. For example, SQL Server can use square brackets [...]; MySQL can use backticks `...`; SQLite and MS Access can use both.
Double quotes help escape reserved words of the current RDBMS which for you includes SQL Server's list. However, it is advised not to use such words, special characters, accents, or spaces in column names.
With that said, like any rule there are exceptions. Both types of quotes may be used with string literals for some databases that allow non-ANSI modes. However, this is not advised to do in practice. Unlike most programming languages such as R, Python, PHP, Perl, XSLT that can swap these two types of quotes for string values, SQL at its base core is not one of them.
Therefore, use either quote type accordingly:
'Printing' AS "External_Segment",
...
AND b."GBU External Segment Description" = 'Printing'
...
AND c."Group Account Identifier" IN (1291, 2150, 2151, 2152, 2153, 2154)
Or
'Printing' AS [External_Segment],
...
AND b.[GBU External Segment Description] = 'Printing'
...
AND c.[Group Account Identifier] IN (1291, 2150, 2151, 2152, 2153, 2154)

Accessing a column named Cast in Bigquery

I have a table and one of the columns is named CAST. How can I access this column. I've tried
Select [Cast] AS cast_s FROM tablename without success, Can I use this name or must I reimport all my data into bigquery?
I know that cast is a function. This is the error message:
Error:
Encountered " "CAST" "Cast "" at line 10, column 63. Was expecting: < E O F > (EOF has no spaces, markdown makes it disappear)
Thanks.
The lexical rules for BQ use backticks for this purpose:
select `cast` as cast_s
from tablename;
The documentation is here.
For BigQuery Legacy SQL you CAN use square brackets
SELECT [cast] as cast_s
FROM tablename
From documentation
You can use square brackets to escape reserved words so that you can
use them as field name and aliases. For example, if you have a column
named "prefix", which is a reserved word in BigQuery syntax, the
queries referencing that field will fail with obscure error messages
unless you escape it with square brackets:
SELECT [prefix] FROM ...