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2.1.4 Special Characters

Some characters that are not alphanumeric have a special meaning that is different from being an operator. Details on the usage can be found at the location where the respective syntax element is described. This section only exists to advise the existence and summarize the purposes of these characters.

• A dollar sign ($) followed by digits is used to represent a positional parameter in the body of a function definition or a prepared statement. In other contexts the dollar sign may be part of an identifier or a dollar-quoted string constant.
• Parentheses (()) have their usual meaning to group expressions and enforce precedence. In some cases parentheses are required as part of the fixed syntax of a particular SQL command.
• Brackets ([]) are used to select the elements of an array. See section 6.10 Arrays for more information on arrays.
• Commas (,) are used in some syntactical constructs to separate the elements of a list.
• The semicolon (;) terminates an SQL command. It cannot appear anywhere within a command, except within a string constant or quoted identifier.
• The colon (:) is used to select “slices” from arrays. (See section 6.10 Arrays.) In certain SQL dialects (such as Embedded SQL), the colon is used to prefix variable names.
• The asterisk (*) is used in some contexts to denote all the fields of a table row or composite value. It also has a special meaning when used as the argument of an aggregate function, namely that the aggregate does not require any explicit parameter.
• The period (.) is used in numeric constants, and to separate schema, table, and column names.