Date: 2014-02-04 22:30:02 +0100
From: Ken Leese <<ken.leese>>
To: SQL devs <>
Version: 11.17.9 (Jan2014)
CC: @njnes

Last updated: 2014-02-20 15:02:50 +0100

Comment 19532

Date: 2014-02-04 22:30:02 +0100
From: Ken Leese <<ken.leese>>

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko
Build Identifier:

From ISO 9075 SQL/Framework Part 2:
::=
::= ...
::= |
::= !! See the Syntax Rules (below)
6) A is any character of the source language character set other than a .
::= "" !! two consecutive double quote characters

However in file …/sql/server/sql_scan.c, the function valid_ident() does not support the standardized syntax, thus causing fatal incompatibilities with existing popular data visualization offerings. In addition, the function erroneously interprets “\” as an escape character.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Two examples simplified from existing ODBC client requests:
-- determine database support for temporary tables
CREATE LOCAL TEMPORARY TABLE "Connect" ("COL" INTEGER) ON COMMIT PRESERVE ROWS
-- Grouping select
SELECT "voyages"."boatname" AS "none:boatname:nk" FROM "sys"."voyages" "voyages" GROUP BY "none:boatname:nk"

Actual Results:

Erroneous syntax error diagnostics

Expected Results:

Support for SQL-92 syntax

Correct syntax for a delimited identifier containing a doublequote is "special""identifier" (NOT "special"identifier" which is incorrect).

Note the comment within …/sql/server/sql_scan.c:
/* Todo check if what valid 'quoted' idents are */

Support for SQL-92 delimited identifier syntax is a requirement for compatibility with existing data visualization client software.

Comment 19547

Date: 2014-02-05 14:38:37 +0100
From: @njnes

adapted the valid_ident too allow any character except " (and monetdb specific, first char shouldn't be a % and length <= 1024)

Comment 19548

Date: 2014-02-05 14:56:29 +0100
From: MonetDB Mercurial Repository <>

Changeset dc5a31561c13 made by Niels Nes niels@cwi.nl in the MonetDB repo, refers to this bug.

For complete details, see http//devmonetdborg/hg/MonetDB?cmd=changeset;node=dc5a31561c13

Changeset description:

fixed bug #3432, allow for any character in quoted identifiers

Comment 19608

Date: 2014-02-20 15:02:50 +0100
From: @sjoerdmullender

Jan2014 has been released.