Interview Question of the Week #009 – Is GO T-SQL Statement?

I often get this question in the email – more frequently than I would like to get. Let us see a simple question about GO T-SQL Statement or not.

Question: “Is GO T-SQL statement?”

Answer: “No, GO is not a T-SQL statement, it is a command which is recognized by SSMS or sqlcmd as a signal to send the current batch to SQL Server Engine.”

Well, here are two articles I recommend to read for more information – MSDN and Explanation SQL Command GO.

Here are few things I would like to add related to the GO statement.

• If recommend a statement terminator semicolon after each statement, however, do not use semicolon after the GO statement or it will give an error.
• ODBC or OLE DB API does not recognize the GO statement and it will give a syntax error.
• You can use GO in a next line of T-SQL Statement. If you provide an integer after GO statement, it will execute that statement multiple times.
  
• You can only have comments in the same line as a GO statement, any other statement will error.
• You can change the command GO to any other value in SSMS by going to Tools > Option
  

Let me know your thoughts about the GO statement.

Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)