How do I escape a single quote in SQL Server?

Question

I am trying to insert some text data into a table in SQL Server 9.

The text includes a single quote '.

How do I escape that?

I tried using two single quotes, but it threw me some errors.

eg. insert into my_table values('hi, my name''s tim.');

Answer 1

Single quotes are escaped by doubling them up, just as you've shown us in your example. The following SQL illustrates this functionality. I tested it on SQL Server 2008:

DECLARE @my_table TABLE (
    [value] VARCHAR(200)
)

INSERT INTO @my_table VALUES ('hi, my name''s tim.')

SELECT * FROM @my_table

Results

value
==================
hi, my name's tim.

Answer 2

If escaping your single quote with another single quote isn't working for you (like it didn't for one of my recent REPLACE() queries), you can use SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF before your query, then SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON after your query.

For example

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF;

UPDATE TABLE SET NAME = REPLACE(NAME, "'S", "S");

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON;
-- set OFF then ON again

Answer 3

How about:

insert into my_table values('hi, my name' + char(39) + 's tim.')

Answer 4

The doubling up of the quote should have worked, so it's peculiar that it didn't work for you; however, an alternative is using double quote characters, instead of single ones, around the string. I.e.,

insert into my_table values("hi, my name's tim.");

Answer 5

2 ways to work around this:

---

for ' you can simply double it in the string, e.g. select 'I''m happpy' -- will get: I'm happy

---

For any charactor you are not sure of: in sql server you can get any char's unicode by select unicode(':') (you keep the number)

So this case you can also select 'I'+nchar(39)+'m happpy'

Answer 6

Many of us know that the Popular Method of Escaping Single Quotes is by Doubling them up easily like below.

PRINT 'It''s me, Arul.';

we are going to look on some other alternate ways of escaping the single quotes.

1.UNICODE Characters

39 is the UNICODE character of Single Quote. So we can use it like below.

PRINT 'Hi,it'+CHAR(39)+'s Arul.';
PRINT 'Helo,it'+NCHAR(39)+'s Arul.';

2.QUOTED_IDENTIFIER

Another simple and best alternate solution is to use QUOTED_IDENTIFIER. When QUOTED_IDENTIFIER is set to OFF, the strings can be enclosed in double quotes. In this scenario, we don’t need to escape single quotes. So,this way would be very helpful while using lot of string values with single quotes. It will be very much helpful while using so many lines of INSERT/UPDATE scripts where column values having single quotes.

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF;
PRINT "It's Arul."
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON;

CONCLUSION

The above mentioned methods are applicable to both AZURE and On Premises .

Answer 7

Also another thing to be careful of is whether or not it is really stored as a classic ASCII ' (ASCII 27) or Unicode 2019 (which looks similar, but not the same).

This isn't a big deal on inserts, but it can mean the world on selects and updates.
If it's the unicode value then escaping the ' in a WHERE clause (e.g where blah = 'Workers''s Comp') will return like the value you are searching for isn't there if the ' in "Worker's Comp" is actually the unicode value.

If your client application supports free-key, as well as copy and paste based input, it could be Unicode in some rows, and ASCII in others!

A simple way to confirm this is by doing some kind of open ended query that will bring back the value you are searching for, and then copy and paste that into notepad++ or some other unicode supporting editor.

The differing appearance between the ascii value and the unicode one should be obvious to the eyes, but if you lean towards the anal, it will show up as 27 (ascii) or 92 (unicode) in a hex editor.

Answer 8

The following syntax will escape you ONLY ONE quotation mark:

SELECT ''''

The result will be a single quote. Might be very helpful for creating dynamic SQL :).

Answer 9

Double quotes option helped me

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF;
insert into my_table values("hi, my name's tim.");
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON;

Answer 10

This should work

DECLARE @singleQuote CHAR 
SET @singleQuote =  CHAR(39)

insert into my_table values('hi, my name'+ @singleQuote +'s tim.')

Answer 11

I had the same problem, but mine was not based of static data in the SQL code itself, but from values in the data.

This code lists all the columns names and data types in my database:

SELECT DISTINCT QUOTENAME(COLUMN_NAME),DATA_TYPE FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS

But some column names actually have a single-quote embedded in the name of the column!, such as ...

[MyTable].[LEOS'DATACOLUMN]

To process these, I had to use the REPLACE function along with the suggested QUOTED_IDENTIFIER setting. Otherwise it would be a syntax error, when the column is used in a dynamic SQL.

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF;
    SET @sql = 'SELECT DISTINCT ''' + @TableName + ''',''' + REPLACE(@ColumnName,"'","''") + ...etc
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON;

Answer 12

The STRING_ESCAPE funtion can be used on newer versions of SQL Server

Answer 13

Just insert a ' before anything to be inserted. It will be like a escape character in sqlServer

Example: When you have a field as, I'm fine. you can do: UPDATE my_table SET row ='I''m fine.';

Answer 14

This should work: use a back slash and put a double quote

"UPDATE my_table SET row =\"hi, my name's tim.\";