Reserved Keywords

Reserved Keywords are words in certain systems like SQL, that are reserved for internal functionality and can cause problems if they are used.

Reserved Keywords in MySQL

List of Keywords in MySQL

Specific problem I had with Reserved Keywords:

I made this fixture for the CSABM application. For the longest time I was very confused as to why, every time this fixture was used, the insert operation would fail.

Fixture records might have invalid data or unknown constraints.
[test] SQLSTATE[42000]: Syntax error or access violation: 1064 You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'interval, time, resource_amount) VALUES (1, '273dfef3-8c8d-452b-9cd9-805e10c563e' at line 1
Query: INSERT INTO transactions (account_id, uuid, amount, initial, end, reason, interval, time, resource_amount) VALUES (1, '273dfef3-8c8d-452b-9cd9-805e10c563ef', 223.2, 500.2, 276.8, 'Bought subscription for 3221225472 intel_mem for 366 days, 0:00:00', NULL, '2026-08-20 11:38:04', 3221225472)/home/orca/projects/csabm/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/TestSuite/Fixture/FixtureHelper.php:169

I spend loads of time trying out different data, removing or adding the id, created and updated fields etc.

In the end, a stack overflow page directed me to the list of reserved keywords in MySQL where I found that “interval” was a keyword used by MySQL, which is why the insert command failed.

I had to fully rename the field to “burst_interval”.