Doug Chamberlin wrote:

>
> 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?

Why is a hard question to answer. If you get your table list by
parsing the output of SHOW TABLES, there's not a lot of place for
the database to put flags saying "this is pretty printed for the
user, but is not really a delimited identifier." You're reduced
to the rules that Martijn described ... and that means you quote
anything you find with lower case letters.

Why would any tool parse the output of SHOW TABLES ... well, maybe
because that's as close to a universal metadata interface as exists.
And the Information Schema (which should be that interface) doesn't
offer any help on delimited vs. preserved either.

>
> 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?

The only indication is the presence of lower case letters and special
characters in the name.

>
> 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.

You can mix regular and delimited identifiers in a statement. It's not
a database property at all.


Regards,


Ann