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

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 '#'