Before the comma « Life is grand

Before the comma

SELECT [Column1]
  ,[Column2]
  ,[Column3]
  ,[Column4]
FROM [Table1]

I am not a fan of the way Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio for SQL2005 generates scripts. Look at how they put the comma on the next line rather than at the end of the preceding line. Everytime I generate a script I change it to:

SELECT [Column1],
  [Column2],
  [Column3],
  [Column4]
FROM [Table1]

Anybody got any idea why they chose this strange format?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 18th, 2006 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Steve Crane 2 years ago 1 point
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I think it's just a visual reminder that makes it less likely to forget to add a comma when appending or inserting to the column list.

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Paul Watson 2 years ago 1 point
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Possibly but after awhile I will become blind to commas preceding the value just as I am now blind to commas after the value.

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Colin D. Devroe 2 years ago 1 point
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It has more to do with the preference of the man or woman that built that specific function in SQL... I seriously doubt there are any good studies that show someone would be more likely to leave a trailing comma than a preceding one. But I've been wrong before.

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Paul Watson 2 years ago 1 point
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That is the likely explanation Colin but I'd hope the SQL team came to that coding style after some thought rather than just one coders preference.

Anybody know if I can change the templates in Management Studio?

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Michael Butler 2 years ago 1 point
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I use the comma at the beginning of a line method too.

a) because it makes it easy to comment out bits of code without having to alter the line above to remove the trailing comma

for the similiar reasons my where clauses look like

where
a = b
or
c = d
and
a > b

so much easier to comment out bits of code whilst debugging the query

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Octavo 2 years ago 1 point
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Meh, it should be quite clear why this was done this way:

To screw with your mind. You will now spend at least 30 mins and one blog post wondering about why MS did this. Other people will attempt to justify it. In the end MS has achieved their sinister goals - massive producivity loss... :p

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cleek 2 years ago 1 point
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a leading comma makes it clear that the line is a continuation of the one above it.

it's still ugly and wrong.

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