Re: simple ALTER TABLE question

From: AFN (newsDELETETHECAPSgroupaccount_at_DELETETHISyahoo.com)
Date: 01/25/05 

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 02:36:46 GMT

"Gail Erickson [MS]" <gaile@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:%23DrQMLnAFHA.2076@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> >I absolutely hate all the garbage syntax documentation that doesn't
contain
> > examples. All the syntax docs show brackets and braces and I don't know
> > which ones I leave out when entering text for real.
>
> I agree the ALTER TABLE syntax can be particularly daunting with its many
> options. You might find the topic "Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions"
> helpful in figuring out what all the brackets and braces mean. Also,
you'll
> be happy to hear that we're working hard to add more examples to the
syntax
> topics in SQL Server 2005. For example in the ALTER TABLE topic in SQL
> Server 2000, there are 8 examples. In that same topic in SQL Server 2005,
> there are 15.
> --
> Gail Erickson [MS]
> SQL Server Documentation Team
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
>
> "AFN" <newsDELETETHECAPSgroupaccount@DELETETHISyahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:KVdJd.9$e11.0@twister.socal.rr.com...
> >I absolutely hate all the garbage syntax documentation that doesn't
contain
> > examples. All the syntax docs show brackets and braces and I don't know
> > which ones I leave out when entering text for real.
> >
> > I just want to add a bit column to an existing table, setting it to 0 by
> > default on existing/new records.
> >
> > I tried:
> >
> > ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN MyNewField BIT SET DEFAULT 0
> >
> > but that doesn't work. I tried multiple variations with no luck. I
know
> > this is simple but it would be easier if the docs said when to uses
> > brackets/braces, versus not, and if they gave lots of examples.
> >
> >
>
>

It's nice to hear from someone involved in the documentation! In this case,
the poblem was the brackets and braces and not knowing if I should type them
or not. SQL is not particularly intuitive (I'm a .NET developer and
comfortable with syntax issues, but there's much less logic in the SQL
statements suggested in a single line in this thread) although I don't blame
Microsoft for that :) Thus, a link to the page where it discusses whether
you type brackets or braces, etc. would be helpful, in addition to the
examples. Had I seen that today, I would not have wondered if I put
brackets around "column" in my syntax just because it was in the
documentation. Thanks!

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