What is a semicolon used for in SQL Server?

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What is a semicolon used for in SQL Server?

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Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004504 More actions · Answer 1

Jeff Moden (5/10/2013)
I understand what the semi-colon can do so far as ending a statement but it worked just fine before without it before.

Increasing complexity of the language. SQL is not an LLR-1 language as it is and hence is not that easy to write a parser for, on that jandles all constructs. As more and more gets added, so the parser has to get more and more and more complex. Statement terminators are a definitive way to tell the parser that a statement has finished and another one is about to start.

You said earlier that the parser can always tell if a semi-colon is needed, but it actually can't. Get the WITH wrong in a query that has hints and you get an error saying that a semicolon is required when it isn't. That's a default error for 'Can't figure this out, there's a WITH keyword, maybe they left out a ;' With C++, leaving out a semicolon got you 20 or more errors that never once mentioned a missing semicolon that would start on the line following the missing ;

I don't know what your formatting convention is but I don't need a semi-colon at the end of even the longest of queries to tell me that a new query has started whether the code has any comments or not.

Semicolons aren't for you.

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

We walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004339 More actions · Answer 2

Yep. I understand and appreciate all of that. It's a darned shame that it has to come to that.

I kowtowed to the future requirement for semi-colons and started using them religiously even in my posts about a year ago. Us old dogs can learn new tricks if it means keeping the supply of bones coming in. 😀

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004504 More actions · Answer 3

To be honest, I doubt they'll be required everywhere anytime in the next 8-10 years. Required in more and more places around new features, yes. Required everywhere, well, we still haven't got rid of old SQL 2000 stuff that's been deprecated for close on 8 years...

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

We walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004339 More actions · Answer 4

Understood. Now, if we could just get them to stop deprecating and removing useful stuff like xp_GetFileDetails and sp_MakeWebTask.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Jamie Ingram-729524 SSCommitted Points: 1573 More actions · Answer 5

The semicolon character is a statement terminator. It is a part of the ANSI SQL-92 standard, but was never used within Transact-SQL.

Jamie Ingram

We are the pilgrims, master.
We shall go always, a little further.