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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T02:11:29+00:00

Checking few RDBMS I find that things like SELECT COUNT (a), SUM (b) FROM

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Checking few RDBMS I find that things like

SELECT COUNT (a), SUM (b)  
FROM TABLE

are allowed (notice space between aggregate functions and parenthesis).

Could anyone provide a pointer to SQL standard itself where this is defined (any version will do)?

EDIT:
The above works in postgres, mysql needs set sql_mode = "IGNORE_SPACE"; as defined here (for full list of functions that are influenced with this server mode see in this ref).
MS SQL is reported to accept the above.

Also, it seems that the answer is most likely in the standard. I can follow the BNF regarding the regular symbols and terms, but I get lost when it comes to the definition of whitespace and separators in that part of the select.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Yes; the white space between tokens is substantially ignored. The only exception is, officially, with adjacent string literal concatenation – but the standard is weirder than any implementation would be.

    See: http://savage.net.au/SQL/

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