Cannot create a database table named 'user' in PostgreSQL

postgresql hibernate identifier reserved-words
Channa picture Channa · Mar 7, 2014 · Viewed 53.9k times · Source

It seems PostgreSQL does not allow to create a database table named 'user'. But MySQL will allow to create such a table.

Is that because it is a key word? But Hibernate cannot identify any issue (even if we set the PostgreSQLDialect).

Answer

a_horse_with_no_name picture a_horse_with_no_name · Mar 7, 2014

user is a reserved word and it's usually not a good idea use reserved words for identifiers (tables, columns).

If you insist on doing that you have to put the table name in double quotes:

create table "user" (...);

But then you always need to use double quotes when referencing the table. Additionally the table name is then case-sensitive. "user" is a different table name than "User".

If you want to save yourself a lot of trouble use a different name. users, user_account, ...

More details on quoted identifiers can be found in the manual: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/sql-syntax-lexical.html#SQL-SYNTAX-IDENTIFIERS

Related questions

Connecting PostgreSQL 9.2.1 with Hibernate

I have a blank Spring MVC project, and I've installed Hibernate and the PostgreSQL drivers using Maven. I'm running short on complete tutorials that show how to connect PostgreSQL with Hibernate. Any help here?

Read More
How do you add PostgreSQL Driver as a dependency in Maven?

I'm trying to develop a Java application with Maven while using Hibernate with a PostgreSQL database for persistence. I don't understand how I'm supposed to connect the PostgreSQL drivers to my application. I get that you add dependencies in Maven's …

Read More
proper hibernate annotation for byte[]

I have an application using hibernate 3.1 and JPA annotations. It has a few objects with byte[] attributes (1k - 200k in size). It uses the JPA @Lob annotation, and hibernate 3.1 can read these just fine on all major databases -- …

Read More