How to declare and use user variables in script (SQL1.sql)

[George Padvorac]

I come from the SQL Server world and am finding many things difficult to do in MySQL. For example:

I have a script used for testing various operations and it doesn't like me to declare variables, but the exact same code works inside a stored procedure.

For example:

DECLARE newguid VARCHAR(36);
SET newguid = NULL;

I get a red squiggly under the declare statement and this error when I try to execute it:

1 You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'DECLARE newguid VARCHAR(36)' at line 1 SQL1.sql 4 1


I tried using this syntax also:

DECLARE @newguid VARCHAR(36);

With the same result. Are we only allowed to declare variables inside stored procedures?

Thank you.