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Informix Error -283

-283 Found a non-terminated comment ("{" with no matching "}").

Inspect the current statement, and examine the punctuation of comments and quoted strings. You can use curly braces to insert comments into SQL statements, but the braces must balance. Or you can use the double-hyphen to append comments to the end of a line.

Oninit® Troubleshooting Guidance

Reasons / Common Causes

-283 is a clear punctuation error specific to curly-brace comments: an opening { was found without a matching closing } anywhere in the statement.

  1. A curly-brace comment missing its closing brace — the direct, most common cause.
  2. Unbalanced nested braces, if a comment was intended to contain another brace pair.
  3. Confusion between the two comment styles — curly braces { ... } for a comment that can span content within a statement, versus the double-hyphen -- for an end-of-line comment — switching styles partway through without properly closing the brace first.
Solutions / Resolution
  1. Inspect the statement's comment and quote punctuation carefully, per the official guidance.
  2. Ensure every opening curly brace has a matching closing brace.
  3. Consider using the double-hyphen style for end-of-line comments instead, per the official guidance's own alternative, if brace balancing is proving error-prone for a specific comment.
Examples
The missing closing brace
SELECT * FROM customer {this comment forgot to close;
-- -283: no matching "}" anywhere in the statement

Fix:

SELECT * FROM customer {this comment closes properly};
Using the double-hyphen alternative
SELECT * FROM customer  -- this is a simple end-of-line comment
WHERE status = 'active';

The double-hyphen style avoids the balancing requirement entirely, since it only comments out the rest of the current line.

Diagnostic Checks
  1. Count opening versus closing curly braces in the statement.
  2. Review comment placement for an unbalanced brace, especially in longer statements where a comment might span multiple lines.
Related Errors / Related Topics
  • -201 — "A syntax error has occurred." The general punctuation-error family this belongs to.
  • -282 — "Found a quote for which there is no matching quote." The closest sibling — the same "unmatched delimiter" theme, for quotes instead of comment braces.

Count opening and closing braces directly — this error is always exactly that simple once you know what to look for.