Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Development Tools Database Foundations Securing and Maintaining a MySQL Database Indexing Columns in MySQL

Posted by Warren Bennett
Warren Bennett
532 Points

can you reference a column using the "." syntax? ie does users.first_name =users(first_name)?

when does one use users.first_name over users(first_name), and vice versa?

1 Answer

Andrew Gay
Andrew Gay
20,893 Points
Andrew Gay
Andrew Gay
20,893 Points

Well while using workbenches it does not allow me to use dot notation in replace for the other.

So if that answers your question then the answer would be no.

I assume it is because the dot notation is grabbing a value from the selected row in the query while the () is just defining what something is to be referenced on...

I am not entirely sure, but I will keep looking it up to find the answer!

EDIT: it looks like the dot notation is used when working directly with a row, while the () has been used while referencing a column.... Still a bit unsure sorry!