SQL-J Language Reference
Page 2 of 121

Capitalization and Special Characters

Using the classes and methods of JDBC, you submit SQL-J statements to Cloudscape as strings. The character sets permitted for strings containing SQL-J statements are UnicodeTM or ASCII with Unicode escapes (see unicode=false.). Within these strings, the following rules apply:

  • Double quotation marks delimit special identifiers referred to in SQL-92 as delimited identifiers.
  • Single quotation marks delimit character strings.
  • Within a character string, to represent a single quotation mark or apostrophe, use two single quotation marks. (In other words, a single quotation mark is the escape character for a single quotation mark.) To represent a double quotation mark, use a double quotation mark. (In other words, a double quotation mark does not need an escape character, but note that in a Java program, a double quotation mark requires the backslash escape character .

-- a single quotation mark is the escape character
-- for a single quotation mark
VALUES 'Joe''s umbrella'

-- in ij, you don't need to escape the double quotation marks
VALUES 'He said, "hello!"'

n = stmt.executeUpdate(
    "UPDATE aTable setStringcol = 'He said, \"hello!\"'");
  • SQL-J keywords are case-insensitive. For example, you can type the keyword SELECT as SELECT, Select, select, or sELECT.
  • SQL-92-style identifiers are case-insensitive (see SQL92Identifier), unless they are delimited.
  • Java-style identifiers are always case-sensitive (see JavaIdentifier).
  • * is a wildcard within a SelectExpression. See The * Wildcard. It can also be the multiplication operator. In all other cases, it is a syntactical metasymbol that flags items you can repeat 0 or more times.
  • % and _ are character wildcards when used within character strings following a LIKE operator. See "LIKE" in Table 1-10.
  • Two dashes (--) and a newline character delimit a comment, as per the SQL-92 standard. The two dashes start the comment and the newline character ends the comment.