Reserved Words

Introduction#

MySQL has some special names called reserved words. A reserved word can be used as an identifier for a table, column, etc. only if it’s wrapped in backticks (`), otherwise it will give rise to an error.

To avoid such errors, either don’t use reserved words as identifiers or wrap the offending identifier in backticks.

Remarks#

Listed below are all reserved words (from the official documentation):

ACCESSIBLE
ADD
ALL
ALTER
ANALYZE
AND
AS
ASC
ASENSITIVE
BEFORE
BETWEEN
BIGINT
BINARY
BLOB
BOTH
BY
CALL
CASCADE
CASE
CHANGE
CHAR
CHARACTER
CHECK
COLLATE
COLUMN
CONDITION
CONSTRAINT
CONTINUE
CONVERT
CREATE
CROSS
CURRENT_DATE
CURRENT_TIME
CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
CURRENT_USER
CURSOR
DATABASE
DATABASES
DAY_HOUR
DAY_MICROSECOND
DAY_MINUTE
DAY_SECOND
DEC
DECIMAL
DECLARE
DEFAULT
DELAYED
DELETE
DESC
DESCRIBE
DETERMINISTIC
DISTINCT
DISTINCTROW
DIV
DOUBLE
DROP
DUAL
EACH
ELSE
ELSEIF
ENCLOSED
ESCAPED
EXISTS
EXIT
EXPLAIN
FALSE
FETCH
FLOAT
FLOAT4
FLOAT8
FOR
FORCE
FOREIGN
FROM
FULLTEXT
GENERATED
GET
GRANT
GROUP
HAVING
HIGH_PRIORITY
HOUR_MICROSECOND
HOUR_MINUTE
HOUR_SECOND
IF
IGNORE
IN
INDEX
INFILE
INNER
INOUT
INSENSITIVE
INSERT
INT
INT1
INT2
INT3
INT4
INT8
INTEGER
INTERVAL
INTO
IO_AFTER_GTIDS
IO_BEFORE_GTIDS
IS
ITERATE
JOIN
KEY
KEYS
KILL
LEADING
LEAVE
LEFT
LIKE
LIMIT
LINEAR
LINES
LOAD
LOCALTIME
LOCALTIMESTAMP
LOCK
LONG
LONGBLOB
LONGTEXT
LOOP
LOW_PRIORITY
MASTER_BIND
MASTER_SSL_VERIFY_SERVER_CERT
MATCH
MAXVALUE
MEDIUMBLOB
MEDIUMINT
MEDIUMTEXT
MIDDLEINT
MINUTE_MICROSECOND
MINUTE_SECOND
MOD
MODIFIES
NATURAL
NOT
NO_WRITE_TO_BINLOG
NULL
NUMERIC
ON
OPTIMIZE
OPTIMIZER_COSTS
OPTION
OPTIONALLY
OR
ORDER
OUT
OUTER
OUTFILE
PARTITION
PRECISION
PRIMARY
PROCEDURE
PURGE
RANGE
READ
READS
READ_WRITE
REAL
REFERENCES
REGEXP
RELEASE
RENAME
REPEAT
REPLACE
REQUIRE
RESIGNAL
RESTRICT
RETURN
REVOKE
RIGHT
RLIKE
SCHEMA
SCHEMAS
SECOND_MICROSECOND
SELECT
SENSITIVE
SEPARATOR
SET
SHOW
SIGNAL
SMALLINT
SPATIAL
SPECIFIC
SQL
SQLEXCEPTION
SQLSTATE
SQLWARNING
SQL_BIG_RESULT
SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS
SQL_SMALL_RESULT
SSL
STARTING
STORED
STRAIGHT_JOIN
TABLE
TERMINATED
THEN
TINYBLOB
TINYINT
TINYTEXT
TO
TRAILING
TRIGGER
TRUE
UNDO
UNION
UNIQUE
UNLOCK
UNSIGNED
UPDATE
USAGE
USE
USING
UTC_DATE
UTC_TIME
UTC_TIMESTAMP
VALUES
VARBINARY
VARCHAR
VARCHARACTER
VARYING
VIRTUAL
WHEN
WHERE
WHILE
WITH
WRITE
XOR
YEAR_MONTH
ZEROFILL
GENERATED
OPTIMIZER_COSTS
STORED
VIRTUAL

Errors due to reserved words

When trying to select from a table called order like this

select * from order

the error rises:

Error Code: 1064. You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘order’ at line 1

Reserved keywords in MySQL need to be escaped with backticks (`)

select * from `order`

to distinguish between a keyword and a table or column name.