Question

When I use the MySQL client to create database, if I type below command:

create database nice-day;

Then it tells me that:

ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '-day' at line 1

But when I use phpAdmin tool, I can create the database named nice-day. What is the problem?

Answer 1

The - character is not considered to be part of an identifier in SQL, so the database name must be quoted:

CREATE DATABASE `nice-day`

In general, though, it is advisable to use underscores (_) instead of dashes in database names to avoid this issue.