SQL Dialects
This page lets you specify the SQL dialects (DBMS-specific versions of SQL) used in various scopes.
File, Project, and Global are scopes that define what dialect to be applied in the scope of a single file, a folder with SQL files that is attached to the project, or every SQL file that is opened in the IDE. If you do not set a dialect, the Generic dialect is applied. In this case, some dialect-specific features are not available: inspections that are specific for the dialect, code completion for the dialect. Also, each time you open a new file in the IDE you need to specify the applicable data source.
Project scope overrides the Global one. It means that if you set the Global dialect to MySQL and the Project dialect to MariaDB, all files outside the project scope will automatically receive the MySQL coding assistance.
Overall, it is useful to specify the Global dialect if you work with a single DBMS (for example, PostgreSQL) and you want to activate coding assistance that is specific for this DBMS. Otherwise, if you have two projects that use PostgreSQL and Oracle, it is better to specify the Project dialect for each project.
Change the SQL dialect in the code editor
Right-click the editing area and select Change Dialect (<current_dialect>) to. In the Change SQL Dialect window, select a dialect.
Disable syntax error highlighting
Right-click the editing area of the input pane, select Change Dialect, and select Generic SQL. The Generic SQL dialect supports completion and highlighting for SQL keywords, table and column names. Syntax error highlighting is disabled, that is all statements in a query console are shown as syntactically correct).
Supported SQL dialects
IntelliJ IDEA supports the following SQL dialects:
Amazon Redshift
Apache Cassandra
Apache Derby
Apache Hive
Apache Spark
Azure SQL Database
BigQuery
ClickHouse
CockroachDB
Couchbase Query
DynamoDB
Exasol
Generic SQL
Greenplum
H2
HSQLDB
IBM Db2 iSeries
IBM Db2 LUW
IBM Db2 z/OS
MariaDB
Microsoft SQL Server
MongoDB
MySQL
Oracle
Oracle SQL*Plus
PostgreSQL
Redis
Snowflake
SQLite
SQL2016
Sybase ASE
Vertica
Dialect settings
Item | Description |
|---|---|
Global SQL Dialect | The SQL dialect for all the .sql and .ddl files on your computer. The dialect may be redefined in narrower scopes: at the project level and for individual files and directories. |
Project SQL Dialect | The SQL dialect for all the .sql and .ddl files in your current project. If <None> is specified, the global SQL dialect is inherited. |
Path / SQL Dialect | The SQL dialects for individual files and directories – if different from the global or project dialect. If nothing is specified in this section, all the .sql and .ddl in your project inherit the project dialect, and all the files that are outside the project – the global dialect. To specify a dialect for a file or directory, click The dialects specified explicitly are shown in black. The inherited dialects (unless you close the dialog) are shown in gray italic. |
and select the file or directory in the dialog that opens. Then click 
or the Dialect options
When specifying a dialect, in addition to particular dialects, you can select:
<None> or <Clear>. As a result, a dialect from a higher level is inherited.
Generic SQL. The Generic SQL dialect supports completion and highlighting for SQL keywords, table and column names. Syntax error highlighting is disabled, that is all statements in a query console are shown as syntactically correct).
Example
Say, most of the SQL script files on your computer are for PostgreSQL. In the current project, you are developing the scripts for Oracle but in one of the directories in your project there are the scripts for MySQL. In such a situation, you'd specify:
Global SQL dialect: PostgreSQL
Project SQL dialect: Oracle
<PathToMySQLScriptsFolder>: MySQL