Question

I’m working on creating some reporting for the new year. I lifted this code and attempted to make it work for a temp table as I don’t have create table rights on my DB. I commented out the PKey portion as I didn’t think I needed it in a temp table.

I’m able to insert the Dates through 2099, “N” in BankHoliday and “Null” in HolidayName columns in the temp table. But, when I go to run the update portion for “New Years Day” holiday separately or as one long query I get the same syntax error. “Incorrect syntax near ‘ ‘.” Just when I think I know what I’m doing too…

Declare @FirstDate as Date
Declare @LastDate as Date
Declare @WorkingDate as Date

set @FirstDate = '01-01-2010'
SET @LastDate = '12-31-2099'

-- create holiday table replace # with dbo for permanent table
begin
create table #CACFederalReserverHolidays
(
[Date] Date Not Null,
BankHoliday nvarchar(1) Null,
HolidayName nvarchar(50) Null,
) ON [Primary]
end

----add primary key replace # with dbo for permanent table

--begin
--alter table #CACFederalReserverHolidays add constraint
--PK_CACFederalReserverHolidays Primary Key Clustered
--(
--Date
--)
--With (Statistics_NoRecompute = off,
--  Ignore_Dup_Key = Off,
--  Allow_Row_Locks = On,
--  Allow_Page_Locks = On) On [Primary]
--end

-- insert the first date

Insert into #CACFederalReserverHolidays 
([Date],[BankHoliday])
Values
(@FirstDate,'N')

-- insert the remaining dates by adding 1 to the last date
While (select MAX(DATE)
from #CACFederalReserverHolidays
) < @LastDate

begin
Set @WorkingDate =  DATEADD (day,1,(select MAX(DATE) from #CACFederalReserverHolidays))
if @WorkingDate <= @LastDate
    begin
        insert into #CACFederalReserverHolidays
        ([Date], [BankHoliday])
        Values
        (@WorkingDate, 'N')
            end
    else
        break
end

--ID Fed Holidays
begin
update #CACFederalReserverHolidays
 set BankHoliday = 'Y', 
    HolidayName = 'New Year''s Day'
    where DATEPART(day,Date) = 1
    and DATEPART(month,Date) = 1
    and DATEPART(Dw,Date) between 2 and 6
    
update #CACFederalReserverHolidays
     set BankHoliday = 'Y', 
    HolidayName = 'New Year''s Day'
    where DATEPART(day,Date) = 1
    and DATEPART(month,Date) = 1
    and DATEPART(Dw,Date) = 2
end

begin 
-- MLK Day, 3rd Mon in January
update #CACFederalReserverHolidays
 set BankHoliday = 'Y', 
    HolidayName = 'Martin Luther King Day'
    where DATEPART(day,Date) between 15 and 21
    and DATEPART(month,Date) = 1
    and DATEPART(Dw,Date) = 2
end     

Answer 1

I think that you may have found an actual bug in SQL Server (or in Management Studio).

These two UPDATE statements:

update #CACFederalReserverHolidays
 set BankHoliday = 'Y', 
    HolidayName = 'New Year''s Day'
    where DATEPART(day,Date) = 1
    and DATEPART(month,Date) = 1
    and DATEPART(Dw,Date) between 2 and 6
    
update #CACFederalReserverHolidays
     set BankHoliday = 'Y', 
    HolidayName = 'New Year''s Day'
    where DATEPART(day,Date) = 1
    and DATEPART(month,Date) = 1
    and DATEPART(Dw,Date) = 2

Appear to have some kind of invalid space characters and/or line breaks within the first two lines. However, when I scan it one character at a time, I can not find any Unicode values that should cause this. Nonetheless, when I edit out all of the spaces and line-breaks and then re-enter them by hand, the queries no longer get “Invalid Syntax” errors.

I suggest that you do the same thing. But first, I would request that you copy these lines and take them to Microsoft Connect and enter them as a possible bug.

(Actually, I’ll be happy to enter this into MS Connect, if you want.)

---

I have entered this into Microsoft Connect as a SQL Server bug here: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/775641/ssms-throws-spurious-incorrect-syntax-error. Feel free to go there and upvote or comment on it and/or indicate if you can reproduce it yourself.

---

I just figured it out. Here is my revised posting for Connect, which explains it pretty well:

When I execute the following text verbatim in SSMS:

update #CACFederalReserverHolidays
 set BankHoliday = 0

It throws the error “Incorrect syntax near ‘ ‘.” As far as I can tell
it should just say that the #temp table is undefined. Note: Even if the
#temp table is defined, it throws the same error.

I got this from a user’s question on a support forum (here:
Update A Temp Table).
Cutting and pasting the user’s text into my SSMS, I was able to narrow
it down to these two lines. After a lot of editing and testing, I
found that the problem would only go away if I removed the line-break
and spaces between the first and second line and then re-entered them
myself. Suspecting some invisible/invalid character, I then quoted
the text and examined it character by character with:

select unicode(substring('update #CACFederalReserverHolidays
 set BankHolidayX = 0', 35,1))

But looking at characters 35, 36, and 37, only revealed the Unicode
values 13, 10, and 63 (CR, LF and Space).

As far as I can tell, this must be a bug, either in Management Studio,
or in the SQL Server Parser itself.

Note that I have only reproduced this on SQL Server 2012 so far, but
the original user reported it from SQL Server 2008.

---

OK, I have just realized that my examination procedure above was
flawed because I was converting it to ASCII before looking at the
Unicode values. When I use the correct expression:

select unicode(substring(N'update #CACFederalReserverHolidays
 set BankHolidayX = 0', 37,1))

It reveals that character 37 is actually Unicode value 8200. I am
unfamiliar with this but I assume that it is invalid.

---

So long story short, it appears that some of the spaces in the SQL code (specifically the spaces in front of the set .. lines after the update.. are not true spaces (Unicode 63), but are actually Unicode character 8200 (“PUNCTUATION SPACE”, U+2008). Obviously you’ll need to replace these with spaces.