Re: Reserved words, double quotes, triggers and Oracle

On 1 Oct 2001 08:03:52 -0700, burdakov_at_vesco.ru (Aleksey Burdakov) wrote:

>Could you garantee that in the nearest future Oracle won't make one of
>the prefixed words (e.g. "O_DATE") a _reserved_ word ?

No. But I'll hazard a pretty good guess they won't. ;-)

>
>You are right that I should change the table/column names somehow, but
>why should I do it at all ?

To make it portable to *any* database. You gonna have keyword problems with a few, although not all.

>What is the "right" way of write
>applications, which could be transfered from one DBMS to another quite
>easily ?

Write applications that are portable to any DBMS? I'd be rich beyond any measure if I'd figured that one out!

But on what relates to naming conventions, I'd stick with table and column names prefixed by something that would uniquely distinguish my app. As in a three letter acronym, or something similar.

As for the actual code, there are a zillion options. Some say: use only a small set of functionality that is guaranteed to be available in all databases.
Others say: use full blown functionality of the most functional of them all and wait for the others to catch up.

I find the first approach totally stupid: might as well be using a flat file.
And the second one too restrictive in choice of product. The right answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Code your DML and DDL in separate modules and make them do the compatibility game.

Cheers
Nuno Souto
nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam Received on Tue Oct 02 2001 - 05:52:11 CDT