In this article, some most common guidance in naming conventions will be given and shown how ApexSQL Refactor, SQL formatting Visual Studio and SSMS add-in with nearly 200 formatting options, can help in achieving capitalization consistency among team members.. The rationale being that a programmer reading through some unknown SQL would immediately recognize this and know the object type based on the name. The change will also increases the risk for failure, as not all dependencies are easy to track. Everything in Microsoft SQL Server can have an identifier. Download Source Code - 18.6 KB; Introduction. Some (older) guidelines suggest naming tables with a TB_ prefix, views with a VW_ prefix, or stored procedures with a SP_ prefix. Database identifier naming rules . For separating words in the database object name, use underscore. This is a bad idea. Likewise, using spaces in object names will force you to add a bunch of otherwise unnecessary quotes to your query: select "user name" from events -- vs select user_name from events My database object naming conventions: I came up with a naming convention which is a mixture of my own ideas and views of SQL experts like Joe Celko! Therefore, a table (being a collection of objects) should be named in the plural. Servers, databases, and database objects, such as tables, views, columns, indexes, triggers, procedures, constraints, and rules, can have identifiers. The information presented here The database object name is referred to as its identifier. The object type cannot be changed without a need to change the name in each place that is referencing the object. Celko's naming convention is based on on the international standard ISO 11179 e.g. But each and every organization has its own naming conventions. Check out this post to learn more about SQL naming conventions, focusing specifically on example code and the Hungarian Notation. Having dots in names of objects will cause confusion. My suggestion would be to always go with names in the singular. There is a huge hidden cost connected with hard-coding the object type in its name. In this article, I would like to share some common and useful SQL Server Naming Conventions and Standards that you should use while programming with SQL Server. too. An individual row in that table would be a single customer. Database object names are referred as identifiers, and are created when a database object is defined. SQL Server Standards Version 1.5 Shane Lively & Michael Sarsany Page 1 of 24 I. A few weeks ago, I posted an article titled "Lightning-Fast Access Control Lists in C#", in which I described a solution for storing and querying permissions in a way that is database-schema agnostic.On the project that launched the article, I was not permitted to modify the database schema due to constraints outside my control. ... it may be useful to encode a schema in the object name: When naming tables, you have two options – to use the singular for the table name or to use a plural. As regards heuristics in SQL in general (as opposed to proprietary SQL such as T-SQL), there is but one book on the subject: Joe Celko's SQL programming style.Many of the choices for SQL Server's AdventureWorks database conflict with Celko's guidelines. In programming, we have many naming conventions like camelCase, PascalCase, under_scores, etc. Dots are for identifying objects, usually in the database.schema.table.column pattern. 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