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I use ADO.NET as well as the sqlcmd utility to send SQL scripts to SQL Server 2008. What is the difference between using ; and GO to separate chunks of SQL?
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GO is not a Transact-SQL statement; it is a command recognized by the sqlcmd and osql utilities and SQL Server Management Studio Code editor. SQL Server utilities interpret GO as a signal that they should send the current batch of Transact-SQL statements to an instance of SQL Server.
They're not strictly required - they're just instructions for the SQL Server Management Studio to execute the statements up to this point now and then keep on going. GO is not a T-SQL keyword or anything - it's just an instruction that works in SSMS.
The library for database programming is called database/sql. Go provides excellent documentation and a very readable source code of the library that can be efficiently used by the programmer to get more insight into its intricacies.
You can use the GO command to separate batches of SQL commands in database scripts. The GO command executes all the SQL statements in the current batch. A batch is defined as all the SQL commands since the previous GO command, or since the start of the script if this is the first GO command in the script.
GO is not actually a T-SQL command. The GO command was introduced by Microsoft tools as a way to separate batch statements such as the end of a stored procedure. GO is supported by the Microsoft SQL stack tools but is not formally part of other tools.
You cannot put a GO into a string of SQL and send it as part of a ADO.NET command object as SQL itself does not understand the term. Another way to demonstrate this is with the profiler: set up some statements that use GO in Query Analyzer/Management Studio and then run the profiler when you execute. You will see they are issued as separate commands to the server.
The semi-colon is used to signify the end of a statement itself, not necessarily a whole batch.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188037.aspx
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