Posted by This is a new format for me – Focusing on a single error message I’ve seen recently and probably frequently. It’s a short entry for this one. I’m not sure of the value of this. I can get most of this from the info center. But I think about when I search on things in other areas and want something in plain English … let me know what you think and if I should continue posts like this.
What this error looks like
DB21034E The command was processed as an SQL statement because it was not a valid Command Line Processor command. During SQL processing it returned: SQL0204N "DB2INST1.CATGRPDESC" is an undefined name. SQLSTATE=42704
Does this error mean the command didn’t work
Yes – note the “N” on the end.
Common Causes
- A query or command tried to access an object that did not exist.
- The query or command did not specify the proper schema for the object.
Unlike Oracle and ORA-00942, as of DB2 9.7, this error is not returned if you don’t have permissions on an object. If you don’t have permissions on an object, you will get SQL0551N, SQL1060N or a similar very clear error message.
There are a number of other possible causes for this error, especially when dealing with Security Labels. See the Info Center link at the end of this post for more details.
Common Solutions
- A query or command tried to access an object that did not exist.
- Usually this is simply a typo and you need to use the right table or object name
- The query or command did not specify the proper schema for the object.
- Some of the engineers I work with refer to this as the “alias error”. They call it that, because for certain ids, we create aliases to the application’s core tables so that those ids don’t have to specify a schema name. If we miss one (most often on creation of a new object), the developers can get this message. Yes, we educate developers on using fully qualified object names, and that is sure the preference, but the WebSphere Commerce application does not use fully qualified names, so all documentation eliminates that as well, and developers get used to working without it
Info Center Link for This Error
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About 4 years late but this also occurs sometimes if the table is empty of values. Don’t know all the specs as I’ve just discovered it but for anyone looking, this may help.
Well, that’s strange. It should just return no values if the table is empty.
I’m only a developer so I won’t be the best source of information. Working on a legacy program where there were simultaneous queries issued in one command and encountered this issue when one of those tables were empty. Didn’t explore it very deep so I can’t provide any more information at this time.
in 11.1 SQL0204N is returned when you don’t have permissions on an object.
on other objects SQL0551N is returned.
couldn’t find why
SQL0204N is not normally returned for permissions. SQL0551N is.
Using python-sql:
%sql select * from “schemaname”.tablename;
It looks like the schema name needs to be in between double quotes.
It worked for me.
Yep, I’m sure this is a common cause of this error in Python. If not in quotes, db2 assumes the schema name is all lower case, and also can’t handle spaces. With the quotes, db2 uses the schema exactly as provided, so my guess is that your schema name had upper or mixed case or a space in it.