Koen Verbeeck (2/14/2012)

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The semicolon is not yet obligated, except when using the WITH clause. This probably will change in a future version.
If there's a statement before the WITH clause, it should be terminated with a semicolon. Pay attention, this is not the same as saying that it should be ";WITH". If everyone starts terminating statements with semicolon in old code to make the code portable to a newer edition of SQL Server, all ;WITH statements will fail.

SELECT 1;;;
;;;
;;;WITH x AS (SELECT 1 AS a)
SELECT * FROM x

cengland0 (2/14/2012)

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Technically, both statements could execute if you just happened to have a stored procedure with the name [use master dbcc showfilestats]. I know, this is crazy but did want to be the first to mention it

Hugo Kornelis (2/14/2012)

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I'm sorry, but you are too late. Henrico already covered that crazy possibility in the explanation of the question: "SQL will assume '@sqlstring' is a Stored Procedure and will fail, assuming it doesn't exist." (emphasis mine)

Hugo Kornelis (2/14/2012)
However, it is not true that ;WITH will cause errors when all statements are semicolon terminated. There is no limit to how many semicolons you use and where you place them. The code below, though clearly not recommended coding style, works.

SELECT 1;;;
;;;
;;;WITH x AS (SELECT 1 AS a)
SELECT * FROM x