Question: What are some good best practices for Oracle SQL naming conventions?

Answer:  Hopefully you already have database naming conventions, standards for naming Oracle database columns and table names.  See schema object name standards. Also read my notes on Oracle worst practices  and Oracle SQL best practices.

Oracle SQL coding standards

There are many coding standards that can be used with Oracle SQL:

• Deploy formatted SQL
• Never try to do too much in one SQL statement  Subquery factoring example.
• Never mix data types
• Always perform all SQL tuning
• Never use the FOR Update clause
• Always use the correct optimizer_mode
• Never nest subqueries (use WITH clause instead)
• Always use materialized views for static table aggregation
• Always use the WITH clause fir complex multi-queries
• Use the opt_param hint in SQL

Oracle SQL formatting standards

• Always place select, from, order by, group by and having clauses on a separate line
• Use comments liberally:  comment exactly what the SQL is doing
• Indent subqueries
• Keep all SQL in lowercase (for readability)
• Always use column aliases for modified columns

In addition, it is also important to deploy SQL naming conventions:

Use SQL*Plus column aliases

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