Character string literals

Character string literals are a sequence of characters from a predefined character set, enclosed by single quotes.

Syntax

'character-seq'

Parameters

character-seq: Arbitrary sequence of characters

Embedded single quotes

If a character string literal includes a single quote, it must be doubled. For example:

=> SELECT 'Chester''s gorilla';
  ?column?
-------------------
Chester's gorilla
(1 row)

Standard-conforming strings and escape characters

Vertica uses standard-conforming strings as specified in the SQL standard, so backslashes are treated as string literals and not escape characters.

Note

Earlier versions of Vertica did not use standard conforming strings, and backslashes were always considered escape sequences. To revert to this older behavior, set the configuration parameter StandardConformingStrings to 0. You can also use the EscapeStringWarning parameter to locate back slashes which have been incorporated into string literals, in order to remove them.

Examples

=> SELECT 'This is a string';
  ?column?
------------------
 This is a string
(1 row)
=> SELECT 'This \is a string';
   WARNING:  nonstandard use of escape in a string literal at character 8
   HINT:  Use the escape string syntax for escapes, e.g., E'\r\n'.
     ?column?
------------------
 This is a string
(1 row)
vmartdb=> SELECT E'This \is a string';
     ?column?
------------------
 This is a string
=> SELECT E'This is a \n new line';
       ?column?
----------------------
 This is a
 new line
(1 row)
=> SELECT 'String''s characters';
      ?column?
--------------------
 String's characters
(1 row)