Drop Table if exists statement giving error

Question

I have following block of code in MySql:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `account.info`;
/*!40101 SET @saved_cs_client     = @@character_set_client */;
/*!40101 SET character_set_client = utf8 */;
CREATE TABLE `account.info` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `account_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `year_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `school_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`,`account_id`,`year_id`,`school_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=7177 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

Its giving me error on first line as:

ERROR 1103 (42000) at line 56: Incorrect table name 'account.info'

What is wrong in it?

Please help me.

Answer 1

From http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/identifiers.html: "Before MySQL 5.1.6, database and table names cannot contain “/”, “\”, “.”, or characters that are not permitted in file names."

Which is why I gave this answer:

You can't use dots in table names. Dots are used to separate database names and table names (and column names). You could try using `account`.`info` if your database name is account and the table name is info. If the table name is supposed to be account.info, you should change that to something else, like account_info. I don't agree with some of the other answers: Quoting never hurts, if done properly.

Since 5.1.6 you can use whatever you please, as shown by @eggyal and others.

Answer 2

As documented under Schema Object Names:

Before MySQL 5.1.6, database and table names cannot contain “/”, “\”, “.”, or characters that are not permitted in file names.

Incidentally, had you wanted to create a table called info within a database called account, then note that as documented under Identifier Qualifiers:

If any components of a multiple-part name require quoting, quote them individually rather than quoting the name as a whole. For example, write `my-table`.`my-column`, not `my-table.my-column`.