You can develop queries for both relational and XML data by creating
SQL and XQuery statements in the SQL and XQuery editor.
The tool supports the creation of one or more statements of either type,
as well as the nesting of either type of statement. Statements that you create
and save are stored in a file with the extension .sql.
The SQL and XQuery editor provides the following features:
- Multiple statement support
- You can type multiple statements in an .sql file and then run them.
- Variable statement terminator
- By default, the SQL and XQuery editor uses a semicolon ( ; ) as the default statement
terminator. You can specify a different statement terminator for the statements
that you create in the SQL and XQuery editor.
- Syntax highlighting
- To aid you in differentiating the elements in an SQL statement or an XQuery
statement, syntax highlighting renders different kinds of elements in the
text in unique colors.
- Content assist
- Content assist is an editing tool that provides you with helpful information
as you type an SQL or XQuery statement. For example, after you type the dot
that follows a schema qualifier in an SQL statement, content assist supplies
a list of the tables in the schema.
As you develop your statement, you can
press Ctrl + Space at any time to see context-sensitive coding help in the
content assist window.
- Query parsing and validation
- As you type, the parser checks the syntax of both SQL and XQuery expressions,
and provides a visual indication of any errors that it detects in the query.