A schema consists of metadata definitions such as tables, views, domains, constraints, collating sequences, indexes, storage maps, triggers, and the privileges for each of these. You name schemas in CREATE SCHEMA or CREATE DATABASE statements. You can also use schema names to qualify the names of other database elements such as tables, views, and columns. NOTE In syntax diagrams, the schema-name syntax element refers to either the qualified or unqualified form of the name given to the schema in the CREATE statement. That is, in syntax diagrams, the schema-name is always defined as: schema-name = --+---------------------------------------------+ +------> <catalog-name> --------------+->. ---+ +-> " -> <alias>.<catalog-name> ->" --+ | | +-----------------------------------------+ | +--------------> <name-of-schema> ------+-> +-> " -> <alias>.<name-of-schema> ->" ------+ By default, each database that you create has only one schema. CREATE DATABASE tells how to create a multischema database. The alias RDB$DBHANDLE represents the schema when you refer to definitions in a single-schema database or definitions in a multischema database without multischema naming enabled. When you refer to definitions in a multischema database, you must follow multischema naming rules unless you disable multischema naming. In multischema naming: o You must qualify definition names using the name of the schema that contains them. You cannot refer to a table and a view or two objects of the same type (such as two tables) with the same name unless they belong to different schemas. o You may additionally qualify the names of objects in a multischema database with the alias and the catalog name. Whenever you qualify the object name with a catalog name, you must also specify the schema name, unless you want to use the default schema. Remember that the catalog name and alias combination or the schema name and alias combination must be enclosed within double quotation marks. o If you prefer, you can qualify an object name in a multischema database with just an alias, provided you have set the default catalog and schema to the ones that you want to contain the object. Enclose the alias and object name pair within double quotation marks and separate them with a period. If you omit the schema name when referring to objects in a multischema database, SQL uses a schema with the same name as the user identifier of the invoker as the default schema. You can use the SET SCHEMA statement to change the default schema.