In the book "Beginning Access 2000 SQL" (Great book so far btw) I'm hitting a snag.

In chapter 8 we are dynamically building SQL statements. The value assigned to the SELECT statement is always prefixed with "s."

ie:

strSELECT = "s.tblSales" or strSELECT = "S.*"

Why is it prefixed?

Any help is appreciated,

Thanks


-Raelz-

The table would have been defined as s, this saves on both typing and typing mistakes :)

As in, using a dim state to declare s to be a table?

-Raelz-

Raelz

It's what's known as an alias in SQL.

The full SQL statement would be something like this:

SELECT s.fldCost
FROM tblSales s

The bit in bold is saying; wherever you see 's' in the query replace it with tblSales.

As Ben says it reduces the amount of typing you have to do. Personnally, I never(*) use them as it reduces the readability of the query.

*Well, not quite never! Sometimes you have to use them to make the query work - for example if you need to bring the same table into a query more than once


Brian Skelton
Braxis Computer Services Ltd.

Ah, Thanks to both of you, really cleared that bit up.

-Raelz-