How to Properly Escape Ampersands in SQL Queries?

Handling Ampersands in SQL Queries

When querying databases, correctly escaping ampersands (&) within search criteria is crucial. A common problem arises when trying to retrieve data containing ampersands in field names.

For example, directly using:

<code class="language-sql">node_name = 'Geometric Vectors \& Matrices'</code>

might fail. A more reliable method involves using the ASCII code for the ampersand:

<code class="language-sql">node_name = 'Geometric Vectors ' || chr(38) || ' Matrices'</code>

Here, chr(38) represents the ampersand character, ensuring it's treated as a literal string value. This approach is proven effective.

Another option utilizes the LIKE operator and a wildcard:

<code class="language-sql">node_name LIKE 'Geometric Vectors _ Matrices'</code>

This replaces the ampersand with an underscore (_), which acts as a wildcard matching any single character. While this might yield a false positive if another record has a different character in that position, this is generally unlikely.

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