Naming Conventions for Greenplum

For general information about this feature, see SAS Names and Support for DBMS Names.
Since SAS 7, most SAS names can be up to 32 characters long. SAS/ACCESS Interface to Greenplum supports table names and column names that contain up to 32 characters. If DBMS column names are longer than 32 characters, they are truncated to 32 characters. If truncating a column name results in identical names, SAS generates a unique name by replacing the last character with a number. DBMS table names must be 32 characters or less because SAS does not truncate a longer name. If you already have a table name that is greater than 32 characters, it is recommended that you create a table view.
The PRESERVE_COL_NAMES= and PRESERVE_TAB_NAMES= options determine how SAS/ACCESS Interface to Greenplum handles case sensitivity. (For information about these options, see Overview: LIBNAME Statement for Relational Databases .) Greenplum is not case sensitive, so all names default to lowercase.
Greenplum objects include tables, views, and columns. They follow these naming conventions.
  • A name can contain as many as 128 characters.
  • The first character in a name can be a letter or @, _, or #.
  • A name cannot be a Greenplum reserved word, such as WHERE or VIEW.
  • A name must be unique within each type of each object.
For more information, see the Greenplum Database Administrator Guide.