Question

I am using SQL Server Compact Edition. I have a simple table:

CREATE TABLE people (
    ident NCHAR(7) NOT NULL UNIQUE,
    first_name NVARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, 
    last_name NVARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
    notes NVARCHAR(4000) NULL,
    birth_year SMALLINT NULL,
    birth_location NVARCHAR(200) NULL,
    amount SMALLINT NULL,
    location NCHAR(6) NOT NULL,
    title_date INT NOT NULL,
    num INT NOT NULL UNIQUE,
    PRIMARY KEY (ident)
);

and a simple insert statement:

INSERT INTO people (ident, first_name, last_name, notes, birth_year, birth_location, amount, location, title_date, num)
VALUES ('t1bbbee', 'Sam', 'Simpson', 'HKiONV6JGxKdd2qs5pQ3GGWlrSPRSfu19cJ6zyEn2qT1WHyv5N', 2007, 'N6fCeYVqJcjDov9DDmLfkpYtGs0WV4QeSVRaKm659lw52W21TX', 1143, 'YcbKbv', 19805274, 7735)

and a simple query that based on my reading of the documentation, should work correctly:

SELECT p.ident + "-" + p.first_name + " " + p.last_name AS "name"
FROM people AS p 
ORDER BY p.ident

However, this returns an error, both in Visual Studio and SQL Fiddle (the latter using SQL Server, not SQL Server CE):

Invalid column name ‘-‘.: SELECT p.ident + “-” + p.first_name + ” ” + p.last_name AS “name” FROM people AS p ORDER BY p.ident

What is the problem?

Answer 1

You are using double quotes instead of single quotes:

SELECT p.ident + '-' + p.first_name + ' ' + p.last_name name
FROM people AS p 
ORDER BY p.ident

See SQL Fiddle