Beginning Microsoft SQL Server 2008 ... - S3 Tech Training

Chapter 5: Creating and Altering Tables
is no model, so we need to provide some more specifics in the form of columns, data types, and special
operators.
Let’s look at more extended syntax:
CREATE TABLE [database_name.[owner].]table_name
(
[[DEFAULT ]
|[IDENTITY [(seed, increment) [NOT FOR REPLICATION]]]]
[ROWGUIDCOL]
[COLLATE ]
[NULL|NOT NULL]
[]
|[column_name AS computed_column_expression]
|[]
[,...n]
)
[ON {|DEFAULT}]
[TEXTIMAGE_ON {|DEFAULT}]
Now that’s a handful — and it still has sections taken out of it for simplicity’s sake! As usual, let’s look at
the parts, starting with the second line (we’ve already seen the top line).
Table and Column Names
124
What’s in a name? Frankly — a lot. You may recall that one of my first soapbox diatribes was back in
Chapter 2 and was about names. I promised then that it wouldn’t be the last you heard from me on the
subject, and this won’t be either.
The rules for naming tables and columns are, in general, the same rules that apply to all database
objects. The SQL Server documentation will refer to these as the rules for identifiers, and they are the same
rules we observed at the end of Chapter 1. The rules are actually pretty simple; what we want to touch
on here, though, are some notions about how exactly to name your objects — not specific rules governing
what SQL Server will and won’t accept for names, but how to go about naming your tables and
columns so that they are useful and make sense.
There are a ton of different “standards” out there for naming database objects — particularly tables and
columns. My rules are pretty simple:
❑ For each word in the name, capitalize the first letter and use lowercase for the remaining letters.
❑ Keep the name short, but make it long enough to be descriptive.
❑ Limit the use of abbreviations. The only acceptable use of abbreviations is when the chosen
abbreviation will be recognized by everyone. Examples of abbreviations I use include “ID” to
take the place of identification, “No” to take the place of number, and “Org” to take the place of
organization. Keeping your names of reasonable length will require you to be more cavalier
about your abbreviations sometimes, but keep in mind that, first and foremost, you want clarity
in your names.