Syntax Conventions

The following conventions are used in the syntax descriptions for Visual Basic statements in Chapter 19, “Understanding Visual Basic Fundamentals,” Chapter 20, “Automating Your Application with Visual Basic,” SQL statements in Article 2, “Understanding SQL," and any other chapter where you find syntax defined. These conventions do not apply to code examples listed within the text; all code examples appear exactly as you’ll find them in the sample databases.

You must enter all other symbols, such as parentheses and colons, exactly as they appear in the syntax line. Much of the syntax shown in the Visual Basic chapter has been broken into multiple lines. You can format your code all on one line, or you can write a single line of code on multiple lines using the Visual Basic line continuation character (_).

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Convention	Meaning
Bold	Bold type indicates keywords and reserved words that you must enter exactly as shown. Visual Basic understands keywords entered in uppercase, lowercase, and mixed case type. Access stores SQL keywords in queries in all uppercase, but you can enter the keywords in any case.
Italic	Italicized words represent variables that you supply.
Angle brackets<>	Angle brackets enclo se syntac tic elem ents tha t yo u must The words inside the angle brackets describe the element but do not show the actual syntax of the element. Do not enter the angle brackets.
Brackets []	Brackets enclose optional items. If more than one item is listed, the items are separated by a pipe character (|). Choose one or none of the elements. Do not enter the brackets or the pipe; they’re not part of the element. Note that Visual Basic and SQL in many cases require that you enclose names in brackets. When brackets are required as part of the syntax of variables that you must supply in these examples, the brackets are italicized, as in [MyTable].[MyField].
Braces {}	Braces enclose one or more options. If more than one option is listed, the items are separated by a pipe character (|). Choose one item from the list. Do not enter the braces or the pipe.
Ellipsis ...	Ellipses indicate that you can repeat an item one or more times. When a comma is shown with an ellipsis (,...), enter a comma between items.
Underscore_	You can use a blank space followed by an underscore to continue a line of Visual Basic code to the next line for readability. You cannot place an underscore in the middle of a string literal. You do not need an underscore for continued lines in SQL, but you cannot break a literal across lines.