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Oracle® Database SQL Reference 10g Release 2 (10.2) Part Number B14200-02 |
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# Lexical Conventions

The following lexical conventions for issuing SQL statements apply specifically to the Oracle Database implementation of SQL, but are generally acceptable in other SQL implementations.

When you issue a SQL statement, you can include one or more tabs, carriage returns, spaces, or comments anywhere a space occurs within the definition of the statement. Thus, Oracle Database evaluates the following two statements in the same manner:

    SELECT last_name,salary*12,MONTHS_BETWEEN(hire_date, SYSDATE)
       FROM employees
       WHERE department_id = 30
       ORDER BY last_name;

    SELECT last_name,
         salary * 12,
              MONTHS_BETWEEN( hire_date, SYSDATE )
    FROM employees
    ORDER BY last_name;

Case is insignificant in reserved words, keywords, identifiers and parameters. However, case is significant in text literals and quoted names. Please refer to "Text Literals" for a syntax description of text literals.