Reserved words and keywords
<< New in Firebird 2.5 | FB 2.5 Language Reference | Miscellaneous language elements >>
Reserved words and keywords
Reserved words are part of the Firebird SQL language. They cannot be used as identifiers (e.g. as table or procedure names), except when enclosed in double quotes in Dialect 3. However, you should avoid this unless you have a compelling reason.
Keywords are also part of the language. They have a special meaning when used in the proper context, but they are not reserved for Firebird's own and exclusive use. You can use them as identifiers without double-quoting.
The following sections present the changes since InterBase 6. Full listings of Firebird 2.5 reserved words and keywords can be found in the Appendix?.
Added since InterBase® 6
Newly reserved words
The following reserved words have been added to Firebird:
BIGINT BIT_LENGTH BOTH CASE CLOSE CONNECT CROSS CURRENT_CONNECTION CURRENT_ROLE CURRENT_TRANSACTION CURRENT_USER DISCONNECT FETCH GLOBAL INSENSITIVE LEADING LOWER OPEN RECREATE RECURSIVE ROW_COUNT ROWS SAVEPOINT SENSITIVE SIMILAR SQLSTATE (2.5.1) START TRAILING TRIM
New non-reserved keywords
The following words have been added to Firebird as non-reserved keywords. More than half of them are names of internal functions added between 2.0 and 2.1.
ABS ACCENT ACOS ALWAYS ASCII_CHAR ASCII_VAL ASIN ATAN ATAN2 AUTONOMOUS BACKUP BIN_AND BIN_OR BIN_NOT BIN_SHL BIN_SHR BIN_XOR BLOCK BREAK CALLER CEIL CEILING CHAR_TO_UUID COALESCE COLLATION COMMENT COMMON COS COSH COT DATA DATEADD DATEDIFF DECODE DELETING DIFFERENCE EXP FIRST FIRSTNAME FLOOR GEN_UUID GENERATED GRANTED HASH IIF INSERTING LAST LASTNAME LEAVE LIST LN LOCK LOG LOG10 LPAD MAPPING MATCHED MATCHING MAXVALUE MIDDLENAME MILLISECOND MINVALUE MOD NEXT NULLIF NULLS OS_NAME OVERLAY PAD PI PLACING POWER PRESERVE RAND REPLACE RESTART RETURNING REVERSE ROUND RPAD SCALAR_ARRAY SEQUENCE SIGN SIN SINH SKIP SOURCE SPACE SQRT SUBSTRING TAN TANH TEMPORARY TRUNC TWO_PHASE WEEK UPDATING UUID_TO_CHAR
Dropped since InterBase® 6
No longer reserved, still keywords
The following words are no longer reserved in Firebird 2.5, but are still recognized as keywords:
ACTION ACTIVE AFTER ASC ASCENDING AUTO BEFORE CASCADE COLLATION COMMITTED COMPUTED CONDITIONAL CONTAINING CSTRING DATABASE DESC DESCENDING DESCRIPTOR DO DOMAIN ENTRY_POINT EXCEPTION EXIT FILE FREE_IT GEN_ID GENERATOR IF INACTIVE INPUT_TYPE ISOLATION KEY LENGTH LEVEL MANUAL MODULE_NAME NAMES OPTION OUTPUT_TYPE OVERFLOW PAGE PAGE_SIZE PAGES PASSWORD PRIVILEGES PROTECTED READ RESERV RESERVING RESTRICT RETAIN ROLE SCHEMA SEGMENT SHADOW SHARED SINGULAR SIZE SNAPSHOT SORT STABILITY STARTING STARTS STATEMENT STATISTICS SUB_TYPE SUSPEND TRANSACTION TYPE UNCOMMITTED WAIT WEEKDAY WORK WRITE YEARDAY
No longer reserved, not keywords
The following words are no longer reserved in Firebird 2.5, and not keywords either:
AUTODDL BASE_NAME BASED BASENAME BLOBEDIT BUFFER CACHE CHECK_POINT_LEN CHECK_POINT_LENGTH COMPILETIME CONTINUE DB_KEY DEBUG DESCRIBE DISPLAY ECHO EDIT EVENT EXTERN FOUND GOTO GROUP_COMMIT_ GROUP_COMMIT_WAIT HELP IMMEDIATE INDICATOR INIT INPUT ISQL LC_MESSAGES LC_TYPE LEV LOG_BUF_SIZE LOG_BUFFER_SIZE LOGFILE MAX_SEGMENT MAXIMUM MESSAGE MINIMUM NOAUTO NUM_LOG_BUFFERS NUM_LOG_BUFS OUTPUT PAGELENGTH PREPARE PUBLIC QUIT RAW_PARTITIONS RETURN RUNTIME SHELL SHOW SQLERROR SQLWARNING STATIC TERMINATOR TRANSLATE TRANSLATION VERSION WAIT_TIME WHENEVER
Some of these words still have a special meaning in ESQL and/or ISQL.
Possibly reserved in future versions
The following words are not reserved in Firebird 2.5, but are better avoided as identifiers because they will likely be reserved – or added as keywords – in future versions:
BOOLEAN FALSE TRUE UNKNOWN
back to top of page
<< New in Firebird 2.5 | FB 2.5 Language Reference | Miscellaneous language elements >>
