Using backquote/backticks for mysql queries

Question

I have building MYSQL queries with backticks. For example,

SELECT `title` FROM `table` WHERE (`id` = 3) 

as opposed to:

SELECT title FROM table WHERE (id = 3) 

I think I got this practice from the Phpmyadmin exports, and from what I understood, even Rails generates its queries like this.

But nowadays I see less and less queries built like this, and also, the code looks messier and more complicated with backticks in queries. Even with SQL helper functions, things would be simpler without them. Hence, I'm considering to leave them behind.

I wanted to find out if there is other implication in this practice such as SQL (MySQL in my case) interpretation speed, etc. What do you think?

Answer 1

Backticks also allow spaces and other special characters (except for backticks, obviously) in table/column names. They're not strictly necessary but a good idea for safety.

If you follow sensible rules for naming tables and columns backticks should be unnecessary.