ODBC and JDBC Developer’s Guide

36 FileMaker ODBC and JDBC Developer’s Guide
Field names
The most common expression is a simple field name, such as calc or Sales_Data.Invoice_ID.
Constants and literals
Constants are values that do not change. For example, in the expression PRICE * 1.05, the value 1.05 is a
constant. Or you might assign a value of 30 to the constant Number_Of_Days_In_June.
A literal is another kind of constant; but instead of having an assigned value, the literal itself is the value,
such as 'Paris' or '14:35:10'. A literal is a “what you see is what you get” constant.
You must enclose character constants (such as literals) in pairs of single quotation marks ('). To include a
single quotation mark in a character constant enclosed by single quotation marks, use two single quotation
marks together (for example, 'Don''t').
You must enclose date, time, and timestamp constants in braces ({}), for example, {D '2005-06-05'},
{14:35:10}, and {TS
'2005-06-05 14:35:10'}. The one exception: SQL-92 syntax requires ISO date and
time formats with no brackets:
1 DATE 'YYYY-MM-DD'
1 TIME 'HH:MM:SS'
1 TIMESTAMP 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS'
When entering date and time values, match the format of the database file locale. For example, if the
database was created on an Italian language system, use Italian date and time formats.
Logical values that are characters must be enclosed in periods. The logical constants are .T. and 1 for True
and .F. and 0 for False. For portability, use 1 and 0.
Constant Acceptable syntax (examples)
Text 'Paris'
Number 1.05
Date DATE '2005-06-05'
{ D '2005-06-05' }
{ 06/05/2005 }
{ 06/05/05 }
Time TIME '14:35:10'
{ T '14:35:10' }
{14:35:10}
Timestamp TIMESTAMP '2005-06-05 14:35:10'
{ TS '2005-06-05 14:35:10'}
{ 06/05/2005 14:35:10 }
{2005-06-05 14:35:10}
{ 06/05/05 14:35:10 } Make sure Strict data type: 4-Digit Year Date is not selected as a
validation option in the FileMaker database file for a field using this 2-digit year syntax.