Is the keyword "ALIAS" actually used?

According to PostgreSQL 7.1 through 9.1 (now unsupported), ALIAS is listed as a reserved word, at least for SQL-99. Later versions do not show it - suggesting that it has been dropped as a reserved word. The old PostgreSQL docs do say "the presence of a key word does not indicate the existence of a feature." When aliasing a table or column I've seen AS, but never ALIAS.

Where is (or was) the SQL keyword ALIAS used? Was it ever in-use or only ever reserved for future-use?

PostgreSQL maintains a list of reserved and non-reserved terms in the appendix. ALIAS is absent from that list. You can verify PostgreSQL does not use ALIAS by checking out the YACC grammar. Even as far back as Postgres95 ALIAS was not a reserved word (the first version in the migration from QUEL to SQL)

• MySQL does NOT reserve ALIAS

• MariaDB does NOT reserve ALIAS

• Oracle does NOT reserve ALIAS

• SQL Server does (in T-SQL) reserve ALIAS (as a potential future keyword on their "reserved keyword" list)

SQL Standard

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In SQL-92, ALIAS was marked as a `; but, there was no use assigned for that .

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In SQL-99 ALIAS was marked as an "Additional Reserved Word", and added to the list of ; but, there was no use assigned for that . Perhaps they reserved the term with the intent to define meaning later, and then withdrew it at a different point. Or, perhaps they reserved the term for vendor defined implementation. PostgreSQL reflected the spec's reservation in the docs, and then removed that reservation with the spec.

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In SQL-2011, ALIAS` is no where to be found and the word "alias" only appears in reference to 'Feature T053, “Explicit aliases for all-fields reference”'

ℹ There is no digitized copy of SQL-86, or SQL-89

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#227095, answer score: 16