Why should I capitalize my SQL keywords? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Is there a good reason to use upper case for T-SQL keywords?
Simple question. I personally find a string of lowercase characters to be more readable than a string of uppercase characters. Is some old/popular flavor of SQL case-sensitive or something?
For reference:
select
this.Column1,
case when this.Column2 is null then 0 else this.Column2 end
from dbo.SomeTable this
inner join dbo.AnotherTable another on this.id = another.id
where
this.Price > 100
vs.
SELECT
this.Column1,
CASE WHEN this.Column2 IS NULL THEN 0 ELSE this.Column2 END
FROM dbo.SomeTable this
INNER JOIN dbo.AnotherTable another ON this.id = another.id
WHERE
this.Price > 100
The former just seems so much more readable to me, but I see the latter way more often.
Solution 1:
I agree with you - to me, uppercase is just SHOUTING.
I let my IDE handle making keywords stand out, via syntax highlighting.
I don't know of a historical reason for it, but by now it's just a subjective preference.
Edit to further make clear my reasoning:
Would you uppercase your keywords in any other modern language? Made up example:
USING (EditForm form = NEW EditForm()) {
IF (form.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK) {
IF ( form.EditedThing == null ) {
THROW NEW Exception("No thing!");
}
RETURN form.EditedThing;
} ELSE {
RETURN null;
}
}
Ugh!
Anyway, it's pretty clear from the votes which style is more popular, but I think we all agree that it's just a personal preference.
Solution 2:
I think the latter is more readable. You can easily separate the keywords from table and column names, etc.