SQL String Constants

This section describes string constants in SQL, also known as character literals. This section also shows how to escape and include both printable and non-printable characters within string constants. Yellowbrick supports C-style and Unicode escape sequences for literal text within SQL statements.

A SQL string constant is any sequence of characters enclosed by single quotes ('). For example:

'We are such stuff as dreams are made on'
'Man Utd'
'06172019'

To identify a single-quote character inside a string constant, use two adjacent single quotes. For example:

'A Midsummer Night''s Dream'
'St. Mary''s Stadium'

Two adjacent single quotes have a distinct meaning from the double-quote character (").

Although it is typically only used to enclose the text of procedures that contain embedded quotes, dollar quoting is also allowed in literal strings. For example:

premdb=# select $$St. Mary's Stadium$$ as dollar_quoted_string from sys.const;
 dollar_quoted_string 
----------------------
 St. Mary's Stadium
(1 row)