Syntax conventions

The following conventions are used in the SQL syntax descriptions:

Keywords All keywords are shown in uppercase. This is often the way SQL statements are typed. However, SQL Anywhere allows all keywords to be in mixed case. Thus SELECT is the same as Select which is the same as select.
Placeholders Items that the user must replace with appropriate identifiers or expressions are shown in lowercase.
Options Options are separated by vertical bars. Any one of the items is allowed.
Continuation Lines beginning with ... are a continuation of the statements from the previous line.
Lists Lists are shown with a list element followed by ",...". This means that one or more list elements are allowed and if more than one is specified, they must be separated by commas.
Optional portions Optional portions of a statement are enclosed by square brackets. For example, RELEASE SAVEPOINT [ savepoint-name ] indicates that the savepoint-name is optional. Alternative optional parts of a statement are sometimes listed within the brackets separated by vertical bars. For example, [ ASC | DESC ] indicates that ASC or DESC are optional.
Alternatives When one of the options must be chosen, the alternatives are enclosed in curly braces. For example [ QUOTES { ON | OFF } ] indicates that if the QUOTES option is chosen, one of ON or OFF must be provided. The braces should not be typed.