why does it not work? select desc from myTable;

[BadMojo78]

Hi,
i have several tables with columns named "desc". When i started to build my website I used to query : "select * from mytable". :rolleyes:
Today I changed some Scripts and stumbled on this error: "select desc from mytable" doesn't work. i have to use followin: select desc from mytable;
Is the word "desc" reserved? Does anyone know? Should i rename the columns. Would be much work...🙁

[sid]

yes, desc is reserved... it stands for descending and can be used in the ORDER BY clause

SELECT * FROM foo ORDER BY bar DESC;

the appropriate opposite would be ASC

i suppose you have a column that holds a description of some kind. rename it to descr or description or something like that.

in oracle (i dont think in mySql as well - didnt try yet) desc has a second function too - that would be DESC or DESCRIBE - so view the fields, data types,... of a table. (i think 2 different functions for one reserved word is stupid - but i suppose that this is due to historical reasons)

for future reference bookmark this: http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Reserved_words.html

[sid]

follow up: DESC also has 2 functions (as DESCribed above) in mySql

[BadMojo78]

thank you for your answer. Think I had better posted this in the Newbies Forum... :rolleyes: Ok, was quiet late yesterday.
I'm going to change the column name to descr or so...

[keith73]

you don't really need to change the column name. you just need to use backticks around it in your query.
but it is good practice to name your columns with non-reserved words

$query = "select `desc` from mytable";

• keith