Documentation conventions
Thissection lists the typographic and graphical conventions used in this
documentation.
Syntaxconventions Thefollowing conventions are used in the SQL syntax descriptions:
♦Keywords AllSQL keywords appear in upper case, like the words
ALTERTABLE in the following example:
ALTERTABLE [owner.]table-name
♦Placeholders Itemsthat must be replaced with appropriate identifiers
orexpressions are shown like the words

owner

and

table-name

inthe
followingexample:
ALTERTABLE [owner.]table-name
♦Repeatingitems Listsof repeating items are shown with an element of
thelist followed by an ellipsis (three dots), like

column-constraint

inthe
followingexample:
ADD column-definition [column-constraint, .. . ]
Oneor more list elements are allowed. In this example,if more than one
isspecified, they must be separated by commas.
♦Optionalpor tions Optionalportions of a statement are enclosed by
squarebrackets.
RELEASESAVEPOINT [savepoint-name ]
Thesesquare brackets indicate that the

savepoint-name

isoptional. The
squarebrackets should not be typed.
♦Options Whennone or only one of a list of items can be chosen,
verticalbars separate the items and the list is enclosed in square brackets.
[ASC|DESC ]
Forexample, you can choose one of ASC, DESC, or neither. The square
bracketsshould not be typed.
♦Alternatives Whenprecisely one of the options must be chosen, the
alternativesare enclosed in curly braces and a bar is used to separate the
options.
[QUOTES{ON |OFF } ]
Ifthe QUOTES option is used, one of ON or OFF must be provided. The
bracketsand braces should not be typed.
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