1.20 Reserved Words

As we mentioned earlier in this book, the PL/SQL language recognizes certain identifiers (language keywords and identifiers from the STANDARD package) as having special meaning. You must not redefine these reserved words as identifiers in your programs.

We compiled the following table of reserved words by taking the list Oracle publishes in the V$RESERVED_WORDS data dictionary view and trying to declare them (as variables and/or procedures). If the declarations failed, we added the words to the list. Avoid using these words in your programs.

ACCESS	ADD	ALL	ALTER
AND	ANY	AS	ASC
AT	AUDIT	BEGIN	BETWEEN
BY	CASE	CHAR	CHECK
CLOSE	CLUSTER	COLUMN	COLUMNS
COMMENT	COMMIT	COMPRESS	CONNECT
CREATE	CURRENT	CURSOR	DATE
DECIMAL	DECLARE	DEFAULT	DELETE
DESC	DISTINCT	DROP	ELSE
END	EXCLUSIVE	EXISTS	FILE
FLOAT	FOR	FROM	FUNCTION
GRANT	GROUP	HAVING	IDENTIFIED
IF	IMMEDIATE	IN	INCREMENT
INDEX	INDEXES	INITIAL	INSERT
INTEGER	INTERSECT	INTO	IS
LEVEL	LIKE	LOCK	LONG
MAXEXTENTS	MINUS	MLSLABEL	MODE
MODIFY	NOAUDIT	NOCOMPRESS	NOT
NOWAIT	NULL	NUMBER	OF
OFFLINE	ON	ONLINE	OPEN
OPTION	OR	ORDER	OVERLAPS
PACKAGE	PCTFREE	PRIOR	PRIVILEGES
PROCEDURE	PUBLIC	RAW	RENAME
RESOURCE	RETURN	REVOKE	ROLLBACK
ROW	ROWID	ROWNUM	ROWS
SAVEPOINT	SELECT	SESSION	SET
SHARE	SIZE	SMALLINT	START
SUCCESSFUL	SYNONYM	SYSDATE	TABLE
THEN	TO	TRIGGER	TYPE
UID	UNION	UNIQUE	UPDATE
USE	USER	VALIDATE	VALUES
VARCHAR	VARCHAR2	VIEW	WHEN
WHENEVER	WHERE	WITH