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

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”.