On 29/04/2014 22:54, David G Johnston wrote: > Raymond O'Donnell wrote >> Hi all, >> >> Probably a silly question, but I'm having trouble figuring out the >> answer... if I'm constructing an string representation of a value to go >> into a text[] column, and one of the text literals includes >> double-quotes, do I need to escape the literal? >> >> For example, can I insert something like this into a text[] column >> directly? - >> >> '{"abc", "de"f"}' >> >> Or would I need to do this? - >> >> E'{"abc", "de"f"}' >> >> ....or something different again? I'm doing this from PHP via the Zend >> framework (v.1) if it makes any difference. >> >> Thanks, >> >> Ray. > > The easy way: > > SELECT ARRAY['ab"c','de"f']::varchar[] => {"ab"c","de"f"} > > Knowing the above; reverse-engineer the literal input syntax > > SELECT {"ab"c","de"f"}::varchar[] #Nope "bare {" > SELECT '{"ab"c","de"f"}'::varchar[] #Nope "malformed array literal" > SELECT '{"ab\"c","de\"f"}'::varchar[] #Yay! > SELECT E'{"ab\"c","de\"f"}'::varchar[] #hmmm..... > SELECT E'{"ab\\"c","de\\"f"}'::varchar[] #yeah, double-escape (literal > first, then array) > > This is all documented but it does not seem to be centrally summarized; you > need to check few different array-related areas to pick up the rules and/or > capabilities (namely, use ARRAY[...] syntax if at all possible). Thanks a million David - that's very helpful. ARRAY[] doesn't work for me, unfortunately; I'm using parametrised queries in Zend framework, and all the parameters get put in as strings, so I need to build the array literals before submitting them. Ray. -- Raymond O'Donnell :: Galway :: Ireland rod@xxxxxx -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general