Keywords

Keywords are special words that are used to build the primary instructions embodied in a SQL statement. For example, consider the following SQL command:

SELECT Picture FROM PRODUCTS

The keywords in this SQL statement are SELECT and FROM. These words hold special meaning to Advantage, and are used to drive the requested operations.

Keywords appear directly in your SQL statements, and are never enclosed within delimiters. Some SQL keywords are also reserved words. As you learned in the preceding section, field names and table names that begin with a letter and that consist of only alphanumeric characters also do not require delimiters. However, if you have a field name or a table name that matches one of the reserved keywords, you must enclose that field name or table name in the double-quote or square brace delimiters. Doing so prevents Advantage from confusing that field name or table name with the matching reserved keyword.

The reserved keywords, as of this writing, are listed in Table 11-1.

ADD	ALL	ALTER	AND
ANY	AS	ASC	AVG
BEGIN	BETWEEN	BY	CASE
CAST	CLOSE	COLUMN	COMMIT
CONSTRAINT	COUNT	CREATE	CURSOR
DECLARE	DEFAULT	DELETE	DESC
DISTINCT	DROP	ELSE	END
ESCAPE	EXECUTE	EXISTS	FALSE
FETCH	FOR	FROM	FULL
FUNCTION	GRANT	GROUP	HAVING
IN	INDEX	INNER	INSERT
INTO	IS	JOIN	KEY
LEFT	LIKE	MAX	MIN
NOT	NULL	OF	ON
OPEN	OR	ORDER	OUTER
OUTPUT	PRIMARY	PROCEDURE	RETURN
RETURNS	REVOKE	RIGHT	ROLLBACK
SAVEPOINT	SELECT	SET	SQL
SUM	TABLE	THEN	TO
TRANSACTION	TRUE	UNION	UNIQUE
UPDATE	USER	VALUES	VIEW
WHEN	WHERE	WORK

Table 11-1: Reserved Keywords