Language elements

This chapter defines the basic syntax of SQL and language elements that are common to many SQL statements.

For details, see the following sections:

• Characters
• Tokens
• Identifiers
• Naming conventions
• SQL path
• Aliases
• Authorization IDs and authorization names
• Data types
• Promotion of data types
• Casting between data types
• Assignments and comparisons
• Rules for result data types
• Conversion rules for operations that combine strings
• Constants
• Special registers
• Column names
• References to variables
• Host structures
• Host structure arrays
• Functions
• Expressions
• Predicates
• Search conditions