# Referencing Query Databases

All query database action statements have a field where you specify the Database Name. This field identifies the database with which you wish to interact. The field can be specified in a number of ways.

- If there is one and only one query database open, you can leave the field empty.
- Deprecated: Internally the query databases are identified by their file system paths. You can access a database by its absolute path. This is not recommended as the path specified on the Open Database for Querying statement might have been in a form which required modification to make it an absolute path.
- Deprecated: When a query database is opened a number of named variables are automatically created with a supplied prefix or a default prefix of Query Database. You can use a \<prefix-Path> specification to directly access the named variable containing the used path.
- The easiest method is to simply specify the supplied prefix, (without an escape sequence). Any specified database name which after unescaping, does not resolve to an absolute path, will be assumed to be a named variable prefix used when the database was opened.

Note. it is strongly recommended that you use the prefix, explicit or empty, when you opened the database as the identifier. At some point other methods will more than likely be removed.

Example:

- Open Database for Querying "/path/mydb.csv" (Yate Track ID) named variables -> MyDB

You can access the opened database via any of the following:

empty
  Assuming there is only one query database open.
/path/mydb.csv
  The actual path.
\<MyDB-Path>
  Unescape the named variable which contains the path.
MyDB
  The prefix supplied on the Open statement./dd>
\v1
  Assuming Variable 1 contains either /path/mydb.csv or MyDB.

Note that the Query Database field in all Query Database statements will be preset to a database identifier if there is one and only one Open Database for Querying statement (in all open actions) which specifies a prefix. There is also an Insert Query Database Prefix context menu for these fields to pick from any used prefixes.