How to insert a string which contains an "&"

Question

How can I write an insert statement which includes the & character? For example, if I wanted to insert "J&J Construction" into a column in the database.

I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but I'm using Oracle 9i.

Answer 1

{J&J Etc.} or \& should work.

You may need to 'set escape \' in sqlplus for this to work.

Answer 2

If you are using sql plus then I think that you need to issue the command

SET SCAN OFF

Answer 3

If you are doing it from SQLPLUS use

SET DEFINE OFF

to stop it treading & as a special case

Answer 4

SET ESCAPE ON;
INSERT VALUES("J\&J Construction") INTO custnames;

(Untested, don't have an Oracle box at hand and it has been a while)

Answer 5

I've found that using either of the following options works:

SET DEF OFF

or

SET SCAN OFF

I don't know enough about databases to know if one is better or "more right" than the other. Also, if there's something better than either of these, please let me know.

Answer 6

SET SCAN OFF is obsolete http://download-uk.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/server.920/a90842/apc.htm

Answer 7

In a program, always use a parameterized query. It avoids SQL Injection attacks as well as any other characters that are special to the SQL parser.

Answer 8

The correct syntax is

set def off;
insert into tablename values( 'J&J');

Answer 9

Stop using SQL/Plus, I highly recommend PL/SQL Developer it's much more than an SQL tool.

p.s. Some people prefer TOAD.

Answer 10

I keep on forgetting this and coming back to it again! I think the best answer is a combination of the responses provided so far.

Firstly, & is the variable prefix in sqlplus/sqldeveloper, hence the problem - when it appears, it is expected to be part of a variable name.

SET DEFINE OFF will stop sqlplus interpreting & this way.

But what if you need to use sqlplus variables and literal & characters?

• You need SET DEFINE ON to make variables work
• And SET ESCAPE ON to escape uses of &.

e.g.

set define on
set escape on

define myvar=/forth

select 'back\\ \& &myvar' as swing from dual;

Produces:

old   1: select 'back\\ \& &myvar' from dual
new   1: select 'back\ & /forth' from dual

SWING
--------------
back\ & /forth

If you want to use a different escape character:

set define on
set escape '#'

define myvar=/forth

select 'back\ #& &myvar' as swing from dual;

When you set a specific escape character, you may see 'SP2-0272: escape character cannot be alphanumeric or whitespace'. This probably means you already have the escape character defined, and things get horribly self-referential. The clean way of avoiding this problem is to set escape off first:

set escape off
set escape '#'

Answer 11

There's always the chr() function, which converts an ascii code to string.

ie. something like: INSERT INTO table VALUES ( CONCAT( 'J', CHR(38), 'J' ) )