Semicolons
in [Programming SQL]
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From: JimLad on 15 Jul 2010 07:22 Hi guys, A very simple question. What the deal with semicolons? I'm still working on 2000 at the moment, but we are upgrading to 2008 R2 shortly. Should we be using semicolons religiously in all TSQL code now? I have to say I don't use any at all at the moment. Cheers, James
From: --CELKO-- on 15 Jul 2010 11:32 >> Should we be using semicolons religiously in all TSQL code now? I have to say I don't use any at all at the moment. << Semicolons are part of the standard and are now required in a few places in T-SQL in 2008. They will be more so as Microsoft gets up to Standards. It makes your code readable and portable in the meantime.
From: Tom Cooper on 15 Jul 2010 16:27 Beginning with SQL 2005, there were new constructs added to T-SQL that require the use of semicolons as the end of statements. Prior to that semicolons were always allowed at the end of T-SQL statements, but were never required. Because they were always optional, most programmers never used them and many didn't even know they were part of the standard. Beginning with SQL 2005, there are constructs for which you must use semicolons. As new features are added with following releases, more and more new features require the use of semicolons. This will continue for future release of SQL Server (the reason is that it is much easier to write a parser if you have a statement terminator that you know must be there). So, for those cases, you will have to start using them and since you have to use them for some constructs, and can use them for all SQL statements, it's a good idea to begin using them everywhere when writing/updating code. However, the good news is that no piece of code that was working in SQL 2000 will fail when you move to SQL 2008 R2 (at least AFAIK). The code may fail for some other reason, but not because you don't have semicolons. So I would recommend that for existing code that you are not otherwise changing, follow "if it aint broke, don't fix it". But as you write new code or make modifications to old code, try to get in the habit of using the semicolons. Once you get on to the new release, if you use a construct that requires semicolons, SQL is very good at giving you error messages that are helpful and tell you what's wrong. That is, you usually get something like "Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'with'. If this statement is a common table expression, an xmlnamespaces clause or a change tracking context clause, the previous statement must be terminated with a semicolon." and mostly don't get "Incorrect syntax near ...", Tom "JimLad" <jamesdbirch(a)yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:fc30face-ebdc-4f5e-a231-f4c8bf6d3b1d(a)g19g2000yqc.googlegroups.com... > Hi guys, > > A very simple question. What the deal with semicolons? I'm still > working on 2000 at the moment, but we are upgrading to 2008 R2 > shortly. Should we be using semicolons religiously in all TSQL code > now? I have to say I don't use any at all at the moment. > > Cheers, > > James
From: Erland Sommarskog on 15 Jul 2010 18:03 JimLad (jamesdbirch(a)yahoo.co.uk) writes: > A very simple question. What the deal with semicolons? I'm still > working on 2000 at the moment, but we are upgrading to 2008 R2 > shortly. Should we be using semicolons religiously in all TSQL code > now? I have to say I don't use any at all at the moment. Nor do I. Except when, as Tom said, they are requireed. In which case I put them before the keyword that calls for it. Or in case of MERGE, where it is required at the end of the statement, on a line of its own. Microsoft has deprecated semicolon-less T-SQL, but I don't see that they will ever go away. The compatibility cost would just be too severe. And it doesn't help that T-SQL requires semicolons in places where you least expect it. -- Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel(a)sommarskog.se Links for SQL Server Books Online: SQL 2008: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/cc514207.aspx SQL 2005: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/bb895970.aspx SQL 2000: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/previousversions/books.mspx
From: JimLad on 15 Jul 2010 20:01 On 15 July, 23:03, Erland Sommarskog <esq...(a)sommarskog.se> wrote: > JimLad (jamesdbi...(a)yahoo.co.uk) writes: > > A very simple question. What the deal with semicolons? I'm still > > working on 2000 at the moment, but we are upgrading to 2008 R2 > > shortly. Should we be using semicolons religiously in all TSQL code > > now? I have to say I don't use any at all at the moment. > > Nor do I. Except when, as Tom said, they are requireed. In which case > I put them before the keyword that calls for it. Or in case of MERGE, > where it is required at the end of the statement, on a line of its own. > > Microsoft has deprecated semicolon-less T-SQL, but I don't see that > they will ever go away. The compatibility cost would just be too > severe. > > And it doesn't help that T-SQL requires semicolons in places where > you least expect it. > > -- > Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esq...(a)sommarskog.se > > Links for SQL Server Books Online: > SQL 2008:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/cc514207.aspx > SQL 2005:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/bb895970.aspx > SQL 2000:http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/previousversions/books.mspx Thanks guys. Many thanks. James
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