Rules for Naming Objects
The rules for naming OpenSQL objects (such as tables, columns, and views) are as follows:
• All keywords are reserved and cannot be used as variable or object names in OpenSQL. In addition, embedded OpenSQL reserves all words beginning with “ii”. Enforcement of keywords may vary by Enterprise Access product.
• Names can contain only alphanumeric characters and must begin with an alphabetic character or an underscore (_). In OpenSQL, alphabetic characters are A through Z, and numeric characters are 0 through 9, regardless of the II_CHARSETxx setting.
• All names are converted as necessary to the proper case for the host DBMS. The host DBMS stores names in the system catalogs in one of three formats: uppercase, lowercase, or mixed case. For more information, see The iidbcapabilities Catalog in the chapter “OpenSQL Standard Catalogs.”
• The maximum length of an OpenSQL object name is 32 bytes, except for the following objects, whose names can be a maximum of 256 bytes: table, column, partition, procedure, procedure parameter, rule, sequence, synonym, object, constraint. In an installation that uses the UTF8 or any other multi-byte character set, the maximum length of a name may be less than the stated maximum because some glyphs use multiple bytes.
To ensure application portability, limit names to a maximum of 18 characters. For names of objects managed by the Ingres tools (such as Query-By-Forms, Report-By-Forms, Vision, and Visual Forms Editor), the maximum is 32 bytes. Examples of objects managed by the user interfaces are:
– Forms
– JoinDefs
– QBFnames
– Graphs
– Reports
For more information about objects managed by the user interfaces, see the Character-based Querying and Reporting Tools User Guide or the guide that documents the specific user interfaces.