Skip to main content

Keyword Casing

Controls the case of SQL keywords (SELECT, FROM, WHERE, etc.).

Community conventions:

  • UPPERCASE: Traditional SQL, ANSI standard, most enterprise tools (Oracle, DB2, TSQL)
  • lowercase: Modern data engineering (dbt, PostgreSQL community, DuckDB)
  • PRESERVE: Keep original casing from source code

Interaction with other options:

  • functionCase is independent — you can have UPPER keywords with lower function names
  • dataTypeCase is independent — you can have lower keywords with UPPER data types

Uppercase keywords (default ANSI)​

select a from t where x > 1
select a from t where x > 1

Lowercase keywords​

SELECT a FROM t WHERE x > 1
select a from t where x > 1

Preserve keyword case​

Select a From t Where x > 1
Select a From t Where x > 1

Uppercase identifiers (default ANSI)​

select myCol from myTable
select mycol from mytable

Preserve identifiers​

select MyCol from MyTable
select MyCol from MyTable

Quoted identifiers preserved​

Quoting is how a dialect says "this name is exactly these characters", so "MyCol" and "mycol" are two different columns. identifierCase reaches unquoted names only.

select "MyCol" from "MyTable"
select "MyCol" from "MyTable"

Lowercase identifiers (postgres-style)​

SELECT MyCol FROM MyTable
select mycol from mytable

PostgreSQL-style defaults​

PostgreSQL defaults: lower keywords, lower identifiers.

SELECT a, b FROM t WHERE x > 1
select a, b from t where x > 1

Mixed case keywords normalized​

Inconsistent casing from hand-written SQL is normalized.

Select A, b FROM t Where X > 1 Group By a Order By b
select a, b from t where x > 1 group by a order by b

Unary operators glue to their operand​

-90 is one thing to read, - 90 is two. The operator binds to the operand with no space, and the operand still lays out normally — a negated parenthesized expression keeps its own spacing.

select dateadd(day, -90, current_date), -1 * x, (-1), -count(*), -(a + b), +1, ~5, 3 * -2 from t
select
    dateadd(day, -90, current_date),
    -1 * x,
    (-1),
    -count(*),
    -(a + b),
    +1,
    ~5,
    3 * -2
from t

Gluing stops short of changing the token stream​

Two unary minuses in a row must keep their space: -- starts a line comment, so gluing here would swallow the rest of the line. Binary minus is unaffected either way.

select - -1, a - -b, 1 - 90 from t
select - -1, a - -b, 1 - 90 from t