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Use Keywords As Identifiers In SQL Server

In this article, we will discuss how to use keywords as an identifier in the SQL server.

Software Requirement

Before you start reading this tutorial, you should make sure that the SQL server (2005 or above) is installed on your machine.

Prerequisite Knowledge

Before you go ahead, it is required that you should know the basics about the SQL server.

Scenario

For this tutorial, we can take a scenario of creating a new database with the name "database" using the command "create database".

Error When Using Keyword As An Identifier

Here, we will execute 3 cases for creating the database.

Case 1

create database database

On execution of the above command, you will get the following error.

Msg 156, Level 15, State 1, Line 1 Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'database'.

Case 2

create database 'database'

On execution of the above command, you will get the following error.

Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Line 1 Incorrect syntax near 'database'.

Case 3

create database "database"

On execution of the above command, you will get the following error.

Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Line 1 Incorrect syntax near 'database'.

"Set Quoted_Identifier On"

In the last section, we tried three different ways of using the keyword as an identifier. Out of three, the first 2 methods are not valid in the case of SQL server, but we can use the third method.

Before using that execute the following command: -

set quoted_identifier on

Output

Picture showing how the keywords can be used as identifier in SQL server

Posted By -	Karan Gupta

Posted On -	Tuesday, March 12, 2013

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