Lexical Structure

Identifiers

There are two ways of writing identifiers in EdgeQL: plain and quoted. The plain identifiers are similar to many other languages, they are alphanumeric with underscores and cannot start with a digit. The quoted identifiers start and end with a backtick `quoted.identifier` and can contain any characters inside with a few exceptions. They must not start with an ampersand (@) or contain a double colon (::). If there’s a need to include a backtick character as part of the identifier name a double-backtick sequence (``) should be used: `quoted``identifier` will result in the actual identifier being quoted`identifier.

Quoted identifiers are usually needed to represent module names that contain a dot (.) or to distinguish names from reserved keywords (for instance to allow referring to a link named “order” as `order`).

Names and keywords

There are a number of reserved and unreserved keywords in EdgeQL. Every identifier that is not a reserved keyword is a valid name. Names are used to refer to concepts, links, link properties, etc.

Fully-qualified names consist of a module, ::, and a short name. They can be used in most places where a short name can appear (such as paths and shapes).

Constants

A number of scalar types have literal constant expressions.

db> 
... 

SELECT 'hello
world';

{'hello
world'}

db> 

SELECT "hello\nworld";

{'hello
world'}

db> 
... 

SELECT 'hello \
        world';

{'hello world'}

db> 
... 
... 

SELECT 'https://edgedb.com/\
        docs/edgeql/lexical\
        #constants';

{'https://edgedb.com/docs/edgeql/lexical#constants'}

db> 

SELECT 'hello \\ world';

{'hello \ world'}

db> 

SELECT 'hello \'world\'';

{"hello 'world'"}

db> 

SELECT 'hello \x77orld';

{'hello world'}

db> 

SELECT 'hello \u0077orld';

{'hello world'}

db> 

SELECT r'hello \\ world';

{'hello \\ world'}

db> 
... 

SELECT r'hello \
world';

{'hello \
 world'}

db> 
... 

SELECT r'hello
world';

{'hello
 world'}

db> 
... 

SELECT $$hello
world$$;

{'hello
world'}

db> 

SELECT $$hello\nworld$$;

{'hello\nworld'}

db> 

SELECT $$"hello" 'world'$$;

{"\"hello\" 'world'"}

db> 

SELECT $a$hello$$world$$$a$;

{'hello$$world$$'}

db> 

SELECT 0;

{0}

db> 

SELECT 123;

{123}

db> 

SELECT <int16>456;

{456}

db> 

SELECT <int32>789;

{789}

db> 

SELECT 123n;

{123n}

db> 

SELECT 12345678901234567890n;

{12345678901234567890n}

db> 

SELECT 0.1;

{0.1}

db> 

SELECT 12.3;

{12.3}

db> 

SELECT 1e3;

{1000.0}

db> 

SELECT 1.2e-3;

{0.0012}

db> 

SELECT <float32>12.3;

{12.3}

db> 

SELECT 12.3n;

{12.3n}

db> 

SELECT 12345678901234567890.12345678901234567890n;

{12345678901234567890.12345678901234567890n}

db> 

SELECT 12345678901234567890.12345678901234567890e-3n;

{12345678901234567.89012345678901234567890n}

Punctuation

EdgeQL uses ; as a statement separator. It is idempotent, so multiple repetitions of ; don’t have any additional effect.

Comments

Comments start with a # character that is not otherwise part of a string literal and end at the end of line. Semantically, a comment is equivalent to whitespace.

Operators

EdgeQL operators listed in order of precedence from lowest to highest: