MySQL Bugs: #9783: Unable to create a new database with a name containing a hyphen

Bug #9783	Unable to create a new database with a name containing a hyphen
Submitted:	9 Apr 2005 14:58	Modified:	9 Apr 2005 15:21
Reporter:	David Leangen	Email Updates:
Status:	Not a Bug	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Server	Severity:	S3 (Non-critical)
Version:	4.1.10 and 4.1.11	OS:	Linux (Linux RH Fedora 2)
Assigned to:		CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
According to the documentation on the mySQL website, for a database name:

  Any character that is allowed in a directory name, except '/', '\', or '.'

Ref: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/legal-names.html

However, when trying to create a database with the "-" character, I get an error 1064.

For example:

mysql> create database some-name;
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 '-name' at line 1

How to repeat:
Start the mysql administration program and attempt to create a new database with a name containing a '-'.

Suggested fix:
No idea.

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, but this is not
a bug. Please double-check the documentation available at
http://www.mysql.com/documentation/ and the instructions on
how to report a bug at http://bugs.mysql.com/how-to-report.php

Additional info:

From a little further down on the page:

An identifier may be quoted or unquoted. If an identifier is a reserved  word or contains special characters, you must quote it whenever you  refer to it. For a list of reserved words, see Section 9.6, “Treatment of Reserved Words in MySQL”. Special characters are those outside the set of alphanumeric characters from  the current character set, '_', and '$'.

You need to quote a name with a hyphen in it, like:

create database `some-name`;

Thank you for your VERY fast reply!

Actually, I did try quoting it.

Here is an example:

mysql> create database 'some-name';
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 ''some-name'' at line 1

A value quoted with single-quotes is a string, not an identifier.

Identifier quoting is explained at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/legal-names.html, with examples.

Ah, indeed! That works fine.

Sorry for wasting bandwidth. Thank you again for your very prompt reply and helpful service!!