How do I write an SQL query that fails?

Question

I need this query for testing exception handling, so I would prefer that the query is not schema dependent. I am looking for something like SELECT 1; but of course that doesn't fail.

I am using Java and MySQL but I hope to find answers that doesn't depend on programming languages and/or RDBMSs.

Answer 1

What about "SELECT 1/0" for starters?

Answer 2

You could put an invalid token into the query

select doesnotexist.* from something_else

Or of course, what you should do is mock out the method and have it throw the exception during your test.