See: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/6.0/en/function-resolution.html. Essentially this means: . There are 2 groups of functions which calls are parsed differently. . One (limited) group is parsed dependent on IGNORE_SPACE mode. . If IGNORE_SPACE is Off, then parser always considers "functionName(" sequence as function call, and "functionName (" sequence as not a call. . If IGNORE_SPACE is On, then parser considers both examples above as calls. functionName should be quoted to be parsed as an identifier instead. . The rest functions are parsed not depending on IGNORE_SPACE, but depending on context. The request for IDEA is that MySQL data source may have some setting for IGNORE_SPACE, and parse .sql accordingly.