MySQL Reference Manual for version 4.0.18.

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10.2.1 Identifier Qualifiers

MySQL allows names that consist of a single identifier or multiple identifiers. The components of a multiple-part name should be separated by period (`.') characters. The initial parts of a multiple-part name act as qualifiers that affect the context within which the final identifier is interpreted.

In MySQL you can refer to a column using any of the following forms:

from whichever table used in the query contains a column of that name. tbl_name of the current database. tbl_name of the database db_name. This syntax is unavailable before MySQL Version 3.22.
Column reference Meaning
col_name Column col_name
tbl_name.col_name Column col_name from table
db_name.tbl_name.col_name Column col_name from table

If any components of a multiple-part name require quoting, quote them individually rather than quoting the name as a whole. For example, `my-table`.`my-column` is legal, but `my-table.my-column` is not.

You need not specify a tbl_name or db_name.tbl_name prefix for a column reference in a statement unless the reference would be ambiguous. Suppose tables t1 and t2 each contain a column c, and you retrieve c in a SELECT statement that uses both t1 and t2. In this case, c is ambiguous because it is not unique among the tables used in the statement. You must qualify it with a table name as t1.c or t2.c to indicate which table you mean. Similarly, to retrieve from a table t in database db1 and from a table t in database db2 in the same statement, you must refer to columns in those tables as db1.t.col_name and db2.t.col_name.

The syntax .tbl_name means the table tbl_name in the current database. This syntax is accepted for ODBC compatibility, because some ODBC programs prefix table names with a `.' character.


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