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ANSI SQL Reserved Words

Oracle uses many keywords to build versatile SQL syntaxes, structures and statements for users to interact with the database. More deeply, the set of keywords includes ANSI SQL reserved words defined by SQL:2016 in its product.

Here we query V$RESERVED_WORDS to list all ANSI reserved words used by Oracle.

SQL> set pagesize 10000;
SQL> column keyword format a20;
SQL> select keyword from v$reserved_words where reserved = 'Y' order by 1;

In the result, it shows that 100 ANSI SQL reserved words used by Oracle. Part of them are symbols, the rest are words.

Reserved Symbols

19 symbols are used in Oracle SQL. Most of them are used as operators.

  • !
  • &
  • (
  • )
  • *
  • +
  • ,
  • -
  • .
  • /
  • :
  • <
  • =
  • >
  • @
  • [
  • ]
  • ^
  • |

Reserved Words

81 words are used in Oracle SQL. Most of them constitute SQL statements, some others are operators.

  • ALL
  • ALTER
  • AND
  • ANY
  • AS
  • ASC
  • BETWEEN
  • BY
  • CHAR
  • CHECK
  • CLUSTER
  • COMPRESS
  • CONNECT
  • CREATE
  • DATE
  • DECIMAL
  • DEFAULT
  • DELETE
  • DESC
  • DISTINCT
  • DROP
  • ELSE
  • EXCLUSIVE
  • EXISTS
  • FLOAT
  • FOR
  • FROM
  • GRANT
  • GROUP
  • HAVING
  • IDENTIFIED
  • IN
  • INDEX
  • INSERT
  • INTEGER
  • INTERSECT
  • INTO
  • IS
  • LIKE
  • LOCK
  • LONG
  • MINUS
  • MODE
  • NOCOMPRESS
  • NOT
  • NOWAIT
  • NULL
  • NUMBER
  • OF
  • ON
  • OPTION
  • OR
  • ORDER
  • PCTFREE
  • PRIOR
  • PUBLIC
  • RAW
  • RENAME
  • RESOURCE
  • REVOKE
  • SELECT
  • SET
  • SHARE
  • SIZE
  • SMALLINT
  • START
  • SYNONYM
  • TABLE
  • THEN
  • TO
  • TRIGGER
  • UNION
  • UNIQUE
  • UPDATE
  • VALUES
  • VARCHAR
  • VARCHAR2
  • VIEW
  • WHERE
  • WITH

Any missing keyword in the statement throws ORA-00905: missing keyword.

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