Formatting Best Practices
In case you want to test any of the ideas below, I have embedded a SQL workspace environment at the
bottom of this page.
Formatting Your Queries
Using Upper and Lower Case in SQL
SQL queries can be run successfully whether characters are written in upper- or lower-case. In other
words, SQL queries are not case-sensitive. The following query:
SELECT account_id
FROM orders
is the same as:
select account_id
from orders
which is also the same as:
SeLeCt AcCoUnt_id
FrOm oRdErS
However, you may have noticed that we have been capitalizing SELECT and FROM, while we leave table
and column names in lower case. This is because even though SQL is case-insensitive, it is common and
best practice to capitalize all SQL commands, like SELECT and FROM, and keep everything else in your
query lower case.
Capitalizing command words makes queries easier to read, which will matter more as you write more
complex queries. For now, it is just a good habit to start getting into, to make your SQL queries more
readable.
One other note: The text data stored in SQL tables can be either upper or lower case, and SQL is case-
sensitive in regard to this text data.
Avoid Spaces in Table and Variable Names
It is common to use underscores and avoid spaces in column names. It is a bit annoying to work with
spaces in SQL. In Postgres if you have spaces in column or table names, you need to refer to these
columns/tables with double quotes around them (Ex: FROM "Table Name" as opposed to FROM
table_name). In other environments, you might see this as square brackets instead (Ex: FROM [Table
Name]).
Use White Space in Queries
SQL queries ignore spaces, so you can add as many spaces and blank lines between code as you want,
and the queries are the same. This query
SELECT account_id FROM orders
is equivalent to this query:
SELECT account_id
FROM orders
and this query (but please don't ever write queries like this):
SELECT account_id
FROM orders
Semicolons
Depending on your SQL environment, your query may need a semicolon at the end to execute. Other
environments are more flexible in terms of this being a "requirement." It is considered best practice to
put a semicolon at the end of each statement, which also allows you to run multiple queries at once if
your environment allows this.
Best practice:
SELECT account_id
FROM orders;
Always remember, just because a query successfully runs, does not mean you have the correct
results. To see if your query worked like you wanted it to, you need to examine your output to see if it
satisfies the problem or the question.
