preserveSingleQuotes

Description

Prevents ColdFusion from automatically escaping single-quotation mark characters that are contained in a variable. ColdFusion does not evaluate the argument.

History

ColdFusion MX: Changed behavior: ColdFusion automatically escapes simple-variable, array-variable, and structure-variable references within a cfquery tag body or block. (Earlier releases did not automatically escape array-variable references.)

Syntax

PreserveSingleQuotes(variable)

Attributes

Attribute	Description	Required	Default
variable	Variable that contains a string in which to preserve single-quotation marks.

Returns

(None)

Usage

This function is useful in SQL statements to defer evaluation of a variable reference until runtime. This prevents errors that result from the evaluation of a single-quote or apostrophe data character (for example, "Joe’s Diner") as a delimiter.
Example A: Consider this code:
<cfset mystring = "'Newton's Law', 'Fermat's Theorem'"> PreserveSingleQuotes(#mystring#) is <cfoutput> #PreserveSingleQuotes(mystring)# </cfoutput> The output is as follows:
PreserveSingleQuotes(#mystring#) is 'Newton's Law', 'Fermat's Theorem' Example B: Consider this code:
<cfset list0 = " '1','2', '3' "> <cfquery sql = "select * from foo where bar in (#list0#)"> ColdFusion escapes the single-quote characters in the list as follows:
""1"", ""2"", ""3"" The cfquery tag throws an error.
You code this function correctly as follows:
<cfquery sql = "select * from foo where bar in (#preserveSingleQuotes(list0)#)"> **tharwood 11/16 This function ensures that ColdFusion evaluates the code as follows:
'1', '2', '3'

Example

<h3>PreserveSingleQuotes Example</h3>This is a useful function for 
    creating lists of information to return from a query. In this example,  
    we pick the list of Centers in Suisun, San Francisco, and San Diego,  
    using the SQL grammar IN to modify a WHERE clause, rather than looping  
    through the result set after the query is run. 
<cfset List = "'Suisun', 'San Francisco', 'San Diego'"> 
<cfquery name = "GetCenters" datasource = "cfdocexamples"> 
    SELECT Name, Address1, Address2, City, Phone 
    FROM Centers 
    WHERE City IN (#PreserveSingleQuotes(List)#) 
</cfquery> 
We found <cfoutput>#GetCenters.RecordCount#</cfoutput> records. 
<cfoutput query = "GetCenters"> 
#Name#<br>     
#Address1#<br> 
<cfif Address2 is not "">#Address2# 
    </cfif> 
#City#<br> 
#Phone#<br> 
</cfoutput>

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