Common Elements in SQL Syntax

Language elements that are found in the syntax of many SQL statements.

For more information on the elements described here, see Identifiers, Search Conditions, Expressions, and Strings in Reference: Building Blocks, Tables, and Procedures > SQL Language Elements.

column-name – an identifier that represents the name of a column.
condition – an expression that evaluates to TRUE, FALSE, or UNKNOWN.
connection-name – a string representing the name of an active connection.
data-type – a storage data type.
expression – an expression.
filename – a string containing a file name.
host-variable – a C language variable, declared as a host variable, preceded by a colon.
indicator-variable – a second host variable of type short int immediately following a normal host variable. An indicator variable must also be preceded by a colon. Indicator variables are used to pass NULL values to and from the database.
number – any sequence of digits followed by an optional decimal part and preceded by an optional negative sign. Optionally, the number can be followed by an ‘e’ and then an exponent. For example,
```
42
-4.038
.001
3.4e10
1e-10
```
owner – an identifier representing the user ID who owns a database object.
role-name – an identifier representing the role name of a foreign key.
savepoint-name – an identifier that represents the name of a savepoint.
search-condition – a condition that evaluates to TRUE, FALSE, or UNKNOWN.
special-value – one of the special values described in Reference: Building Blocks, Tables, and Procedures > SQL Language Elements > Special Values .
statement-label – an identifier that represents the label of a loop or compound statement.
table-list – a list of table names, which might include correlation names. For more information, see FROM clause.
table-name – an identifier that represents the name of a table.
userid – an identifier representing a user name. The user ID is not case-sensitive and is unaffected by the setting of the CASE RESPECT property of the database.
variable-name – an identifier that represents a variable name.