Re: the use of $$string$$

On Nov 4, 2011, at 11:26, John Fabiani <johnf(at)jfcomputer(dot)com> wrote:

> On Friday, November 04, 2011 07:38:29 am John Fabiani wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I just discovered that I can use $$string$$ to account for the problem of
>> single quotes in the string (or other strange char's). However, I noticed
>> that the table field contained E'string'. I actually tried to find info on
>> this but I did not find anything.
>>
>> Could someone explain what it means or better provide a web link for me to
>> discover the info.
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Johnf
>
>
> Thank you both for the quick replies and the links.
>
> What I still do not understand (I'm a little slow) is the fact that pgadmin3
> showed the data as E'string'. So I'm wondering if the data is now different
> in the sense that I need use the 'E' in the field.
>
> For example I have the last name of O'Reilly
> the field lname now appears to contain E'O'Reilly'
>
> So will the normal select statements work;
>
> Select * from table where lname = 'O'' Reilly'
> Select * from table where lname like 'O%'
>
> or will I need to know the data contains the "E" and add the 'E' to the sql
> statements?
>
> Thanks
> Johnf
>
>

Try it and see.

If, indeed, the E is part of the data you should fix your process. Done correctly there should be no difference in the end result regardless of how you choose to identify your strings.

Don't use pgadmin3 myself so I don't know if what you are looking at would include the E. If it is outputting DDL (I.e., INSERT statements) it might but simple SELECT results should not.

David J.