Newbie Question (column names)

I am in the process of writting a program, in my language of choice,
(ooRexx) to perform the following conversion from BTrieve databases to
MySQL tables:

1) Gather BTrieve field names
2) Export data from BTrieve to MySQL compatable .csv files
3) Create the MySQL table based on data gleaned in step 1
4) Import the .csv file from step 2 into the table created in step 3

All is going very well and is blazingly fast, but there's one little
issue I've encountered that maybe you experienced MySQL users can
assist me in.

I've encounted several BTrieve field names that MySQL doesn't "like"
as table column names (and I fully understand why).
The ones so far are:
key
group
desc

I've coded my program to prepend such names with the letter "a" (key
becomes akey, etc.)

Are there other "key words" that I should account for (maybe a list of
MySQL "reserved words")?

Thanks
Lee

Nevermind - I reformed my Google search text and came up with the
following link:
<http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/reserved-words.html>
Which I think answers my question.

Thanks
Lee


On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 12:55:19 GMT, Lee Peedin
<lpeedinDONOTSPAME@nc.rr.com> wrote:

>I am in the process of writting a program, in my language of choice,
>(ooRexx) to perform the following conversion from BTrieve databases to
>MySQL tables:
>
>1) Gather BTrieve field names
>2) Export data from BTrieve to MySQL compatable .csv files
>3) Create the MySQL table based on data gleaned in step 1
>4) Import the .csv file from step 2 into the table created in step 3
>
>All is going very well and is blazingly fast, but there's one little
>issue I've encountered that maybe you experienced MySQL users can
>assist me in.
>
>I've encounted several BTrieve field names that MySQL doesn't "like"
>as table column names (and I fully understand why).
>The ones so far are:
>key
>group
>desc
>
>I've coded my program to prepend such names with the letter "a" (key
>becomes akey, etc.)
>
>Are there other "key words" that I should account for (maybe a list of
>MySQL "reserved words")?
>
>Thanks
>Lee
>

Lee Peedin wrote:

> I am in the process of writting a program, in my language of choice,
> (ooRexx) to perform the following conversion from BTrieve databases to
> MySQL tables:
>
> 1) Gather BTrieve field names
> 2) Export data from BTrieve to MySQL compatable .csv files
> 3) Create the MySQL table based on data gleaned in step 1
> 4) Import the .csv file from step 2 into the table created in step 3
>
> All is going very well and is blazingly fast, but there's one little
> issue I've encountered that maybe you experienced MySQL users can
> assist me in.
>
> I've encounted several BTrieve field names that MySQL doesn't "like"
> as table column names (and I fully understand why).
> The ones so far are:
> key
> group
> desc
>
> I've coded my program to prepend such names with the letter "a" (key
> becomes akey, etc.)
>
> Are there other "key words" that I should account for (maybe a list of
> MySQL "reserved words")?


It doesn't matter, just put backticks around the column names and you can
call them key, group, desc etc.



--
Brian Wakem
Email: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/b.wakem/myemail.png

On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 19:24:21 +0100, Brian Wakem <no@email.com> wrote:

>Lee Peedin wrote:
>
>
>It doesn't matter, just put backticks around the column names and you can
>call them key, group, desc etc.

Thanks for the tip Brian, but wouldn't that also mean that the
backticks would have to be used in any SQL statement that might
involve such names?

Lee

Lee Peedin wrote:

> On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 19:24:21 +0100, Brian Wakem <no@email.com> wrote:
>
>>Lee Peedin wrote:
>>
>>
>>It doesn't matter, just put backticks around the column names and you can
>>call them key, group, desc etc.
>
> Thanks for the tip Brian, but wouldn't that also mean that the
> backticks would have to be used in any SQL statement that might
> involve such names?


Yes. If you put backticks around all col names all the time then you don't
need to test whether or not you need to use backticks.


--
Brian Wakem
Email: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/b.wakem/myemail.png

If you need to export your Btrieve data to .csv you might take a look
at BtSearch at www.nssdd.com. It will export many data types that ODBC
does not recognize. You would export to .csv and then import that into
your MySQL.

Gil

Lee Peedin wrote:
> I am in the process of writting a program, in my language of choice,
> (ooRexx) to perform the following conversion from BTrieve databases to
> MySQL tables:
>
> 1) Gather BTrieve field names
> 2) Export data from BTrieve to MySQL compatable .csv files
> 3) Create the MySQL table based on data gleaned in step 1
> 4) Import the .csv file from step 2 into the table created in step 3
>
> All is going very well and is blazingly fast, but there's one little
> issue I've encountered that maybe you experienced MySQL users can
> assist me in.
>
> I've encounted several BTrieve field names that MySQL doesn't "like"
> as table column names (and I fully understand why).
> The ones so far are:
> key
> group
> desc
>
> I've coded my program to prepend such names with the letter "a" (key
> becomes akey, etc.)
>
> Are there other "key words" that I should account for (maybe a list of
> MySQL "reserved words")?
>
> Thanks
> Lee

Gil,
Thanks for the pointer, but we've been using BTrieve for several years
and through the use of ooRexx libraries I've created a BTrieve to .csv
scipt that works quite well.
Basically it prompts the user for the file to extract and the
corresponding ddf name.
It then extracts the field definitions in the ddf. From there the
..csv is built, the table is built (with an additional primary key
field added), and finally it loads the csv into the newly created
table. All field names are compared against a word list of MySQL
"reserved words" and the field name for matches is pre-pended with the
letter "a".

After discussing this with the author of the Rexx/SQL interface, he
has suggested/recommended that even though the backticks work, we
should continue the practice of not using any column names that
conflict with reserved words - in the event that we at some point move
to an SQL server that is not as accomodating as MySQL.

Lee

On 4 Sep 2006 16:27:14 -0700, nelsonsoft@nssdd.com wrote:

>If you need to export your Btrieve data to .csv you might take a look
>at BtSearch at www.nssdd.com. It will export many data types that ODBC
>does not recognize. You would export to .csv and then import that into
>your MySQL.
>
>Gil
>
>Lee Peedin wrote:
>> I am in the process of writting a program, in my language of choice,
>> (ooRexx) to perform the following conversion from BTrieve databases to
>> MySQL tables:
>>
>> 1) Gather BTrieve field names
>> 2) Export data from BTrieve to MySQL compatable .csv files
>> 3) Create the MySQL table based on data gleaned in step 1
>> 4) Import the .csv file from step 2 into the table created in step 3
>>
>> All is going very well and is blazingly fast, but there's one little
>> issue I've encountered that maybe you experienced MySQL users can
>> assist me in.
>>
>> I've encounted several BTrieve field names that MySQL doesn't "like"
>> as table column names (and I fully understand why).
>> The ones so far are:
>> key
>> group
>> desc
>>
>> I've coded my program to prepend such names with the letter "a" (key
>> becomes akey, etc.)
>>
>> Are there other "key words" that I should account for (maybe a list of
>> MySQL "reserved words")?
>>
>> Thanks
>> Lee