Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Data Management:
SQL Development

Naming objects for OpenEdge SQL and Progress 4GL databases

Naming database objects correctly will ensure the SQL client can easily access an object created with the Progress 4GL. There are subtle differences to the naming conventions for both languages.

Naming conventions for Progress 4GL objects

The following rules apply to Progress 4GL data field naming conventions:

Must be limited to 32 characters.
Can be written in any combination of uppercase or lowercase letters.
Must begin with a letter.
Can contain a combination of letters, digits, periods (.), hyphens (-), and underscores (_).
Note: Although the 4GL itself has many hyphenated keywords, Progress Software Corporation recommends that you do not use hyphens in database table and field names, because the SQL standard does not allow hyphens in table and column names. Hyphenated identifiers can be used if delimited in SQL.

Naming conventions for OpenEdge SQL identifiers

SQL database object names are referred to as identifiers. The two types of SQL identifiers are:

Conventional identifiers.
Delimited identifiers enclosed in double quotation marks.

Conventional identifiers

Conventional SQL identifiers must:

Be limited to 32 characters.
Begin with an uppercase or lowercase letter.
Contain only letters (A–Z), digits (0–9), or the underscore character ( _ ).
Not contain a hyphen.
Not be reserved words, such as CREATE or DROP.
Use ASCII characters only.

Delimited identifiers

Delimited identifiers are strings of no more than 32 ASCII characters enclosed in quotation marks ( " " ). Delimited identifiers allow you to create identifiers that are identical to keywords or that use special characters (such as #, -, &, or *) or a space. To include a quotation mark character in a delimited identifier, precede it with another quotation mark.

Note: Progress 4GL database objects must be named in a manner consistent with SQL delimited identifiers in order to be accessed by an OpenEdge SQL client. For example, a Progress 4GL table with a name that includes a special character should also use quotation marks (for example, “Orders&Deliveries”) in order to be accessible from the OpenEdge SQL interface.