Regular and Delimited Identifiers
Identifiers in SQL statements specify names for the following objects:
• Authorization identifier (user, group, or role)
• Column
• Constraint
• Correlation name
• Cursor
• Database event
• Database procedure
• Database procedure label
• Database procedure parameter
• Database procedure variable
• Index
• Location
• Prepared query
• Rule
• Savepoint
• Schema
• Synonym
• Table
• View
The name for any of these objects can be specified using regular (unquoted) identifiers or delimited (double-quoted) identifiers. For example:
• Table name specified using a regular identifier in a SELECT SQL statement:
SELECT * FROM employees
• Table name specified using a delimited identifier in a SELECT SQL statement:
SELECT * FROM "my table"
Delimited identifiers let you use special characters in object names. The use of special characters in regular identifiers is restricted. For example, a view name that begins with or consists only of numeric characters must be delimited because a regular identifier cannot begin with the characters 0 through 9, #, @, and $.