I apologise for the trivial question, but I was trying to work out how to do a RIGHT
in SQL so I experimentally typed RIGHT
and it didn't highlight in purple, so I spent some time scratching my head about how to do this using substring and length, then I later discovered that RIGHT
is perfectly valid.
How come it wasn't highlighted purple?
Best Answer
Because while you're right that
RIGHT()
is a function,RIGHT
is also a keyword, as inRIGHT OUTER JOIN
. They have to pick one (SSMS is not smart enough to detect context). I face the same problem in the syntax highlighting plugin I use for my blogs - it either has to color all instances ofRIGHT
as grey, or all instances ofRIGHT
as purple.(Also, if you have doubts about T-SQL syntax, don't waste your time trying to rely on IntelliSense to guide you - consult the documentation, that's what it's for.)