How to declare reserved words as variables in Oracle PL/SQL?

Question

What is the best way to bypass the Oracle SQL reserved-word constraint for PL/SQL value declaration? I realize bind and substitution may be acceptable alternatives for an actual query, but what about Oracle PL/SQL? For example I would like to declare a numeric variable as "num", structured below within the Oracle PL query:

SET SERVEROUTPUT ON
declare
 num number;
begin
 num := 10;
 DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line('The value of num ' || num); 
end;

Answer 1

NUM is not a reserved word.

The best way is not to use reserved words.

If you insist on using them, you can put them between quotation marks. This does not work:

SET SERVEROUTPUT ON
declare
 begin number;
begin
 begin := 10;
 DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line('The value of begin ' || begin); 
end;
/

This does:

SET SERVEROUTPUT ON
declare
 "begin" number;
begin
 "begin" := 10;
 DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line('The value of begin ' || "begin"); 
end;
/

Quotation marks also make the variable name case-sensitive. "begin", "Begin" and "BEGIN" are different variables.

• alexanderjsingleton: that's strange because my Oracle SQL Developer output window was treating it as an error; I re-ran my script in my question and now it passes. In any case, I was looking for the appropriate bypass with quotes as you suggested-thank you!
• Joishi Bodio: Would upvote 20 times if I could - there should really be no reason to ever use a reserved word as a variable/column name. If you are using a reserved word, chances are your variable/column name isn't descriptive enough. With a variable it's easy to have a prepend on it (my_timestamp as an example).
• Vérace: begin number; will make your app non-portable and your debugging difficult. Anyone who uses reserved words in PL/SQL (or anywhere) should be committed :-) You have IIRC 30 whole characters per identifier - the manual says you can quote reserved words, but this is not recommended.
• BriteSponge: To add to that - DON'T DO IT. Its just not worth it. I've turned up at client sites to find that users insisted on certain names for table columns that included reserved words as well as 'non-standard' characters, e.g. '-'. I see it as a lack of consideration for anyone running or debugging code later.