At 03:43 PM 12/4/2007, Ann W. Harrison wrote:

>Doug Chamberlin wrote:
>
> > Sorry, but I still don't understand. Can you present a specific example?
> >
>
>Sure. You do this:
>
>create table BigTable (BigField varchar (20000));
>
>The metadata is stored preserving case. A portable tool does a
>show tables to get its table list and sees
>
>...
>BigTable
>...
>
>It then generates a query
>
>select * from "BigTable";
>
>Which fails because "BigTable" is not the same as BigTable under
>the ISO SQL Standard.

Ah, so the problem arises when un-quoted and quoted usage is both used over
time. Why would anyone do that or why would a tool do that?

Is there no indicator stored in the database that a tool can use to tell
whether identifiers were created with un-quoted or quoted style?

I always thought if the database was created using un-quoted style then you
needed to continue to use un-quoted style. Similarly you need to be
consistent when using quoted style. Anything else would be problematic. So
changing Firebird to preserve case would not exacerbate the problem at all.