rspec/rules/S3964/tsql/rule.adoc

== Why is this an issue?

In Transact-SQL, the semicolon statement terminator is in most cases optional. Therefore many developers don't use semicolons. However, in some situations missing semicolons may yield insidious errors.


Semicolons are required by the ANSI standard, and Microsoft https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/language-elements/transact-sql-syntax-conventions-transact-sql[recommends] the consistent usage of semicolons and might make semicolons mandatory in a future version of SQL Server. Also, semicolons make the code more portable.


=== Noncompliant code example

In the code sample below, the exception will never be rethrown because ``++SELECT ERROR_MESSAGE() THROW++`` will be interpreted as a column alias.

[source,sql]
----
BEGIN TRY
  BEGIN TRAN;
  SELECT 1/0 AS AnException;
  COMMIT;
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
  SELECT ERROR_MESSAGE()    -- Noncompliant; no exception will be thrown
  THROW
END CATCH
----


=== Compliant solution

[source,sql]
----
BEGIN TRY
  BEGIN TRAN;
  SELECT 1/0 AS AnException;
  COMMIT;
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
  SELECT ERROR_MESSAGE();
  THROW;
END CATCH
----



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== Implementation Specification
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'''
== Comments And Links
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