An alias is a name for a particular attachment to a database. Explicitly specifying an alias lets your program or interactive SQL statements refer to more than one database. Once you specified the alias, you must use it when referring to the database in subsequent SQL statements (unless those statements are within a CREATE DATABASE statement). You must use an alias when you declare more than one database so that SQL knows the database to which your statements refer. When you issue an ATTACH, CONNECT, CREATE DATABASE, CREATE DOMAIN, CREATE TABLE, DECLARE ALIAS, GRANT, GRANT (ANSI-style), IMPORT, REVOKE, or SET TRANSACTION statement, you can specify an alias in addition to a file specification or a repository path name. SQL allows you to specify an alias that declares the database as the default database. Specifying a default database means that subsequent statements that refer to the default database during the database attachment do not need to use an alias.