{"id":130324,"date":"2022-04-13T18:00:03","date_gmt":"2022-04-13T22:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/?post_type=codex-reference&p=130324"},"modified":"2025-02-04T14:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T19:40:11","slug":"naming-conventions","status":"publish","type":"codex-reference","link":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/learn\/sql\/naming-conventions","title":{"rendered":"Naming Conventions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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SQL Naming Conventions<\/h1>

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With regards to writing good SQL code, there are a number of SQL naming conventions as well as best practices which should be followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use all lowercase for column and table names and to separate words with an underscore (\u201c_\u201d). For example, start_date<\/code> and end_date<\/code> as column names as opposed to StartingDate<\/code> and EndingDate<\/code>, and employees<\/code> as a table name as opposed to Employees<\/code>. This works together with the good SQL style convention of capitalizing statements names, clauses, and other keywords for better code readability: SELECT start_date, end_date FROM campaign;<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all SQL code and data, using table, column, variable names, or aliases which conflict with SQL keywords and reserved words<\/a> should be avoided. Tables and columns should be given clear, easily understandable and uniquely identifying names. Abbreviations should not be used unless absolutely necessary as required by the maximum length enforced for column and table names – in which case it is likely that a different, more succinct name should be considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some older style guides suggest it, the general consensus amongst more modern style guides is to avoid table and column names with prefixes or suffixes denoting the data or entity type or are a short abbreviation. For example, a table name of employees<\/code> is preferable to tbl_employees<\/code>, and a column name like customer_account_tx<\/code> is ambiguous, as it is unclear whether tx<\/code> is an abbreviation for \u201ctransaction\u201d or designating that this column is a text field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While not a hard-and-fast rule, many style guides suggest only using singular nouns for table names for clarity; e.g. <\/em>customer<\/code> as opposed to customers<\/code>.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also a number of conventions which are enforced by the SQL engine. Though these vary somewhat between SQL \u201cflavors\u201d, SQL columns and table names should begin with a letter, not end in an underscore, and should contain only alphanumeric characters. Column and table names should not contain spaces. For some varieties of SQL, these rules must be followed explicitly or code will confuse the SQL interpreter and not execute.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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