[sql] How to enter special characters like "&" in oracle database?

I want to insert special character & in my insert statement. My insert is:

INSERT INTO STUDENT(name, class_id) VALUES ('Samantha', 'Java_22 & Oracle_14');

If I try to run this query I am getting a popup and it asks me to enter value for Oracle_14.

How can I enter special characters like & in the insert statement for oracle db?

You can either use the backslash character to escape a single character or symbol

'Java_22 \& Oracle_14'

or braces to escape a string of characters or symbols

'{Java_22 & Oracle_14}'

Also you can use concat like this :D

Insert into Table Value(CONCAT('JAVA ',CONCAT('& ', 'Oracle'));

strAdd=strAdd.replace("&","'||'&'||'");

In my case I need to insert a row with text 'Please dial *001 for help'. In this case the special character is an asterisk.

By using direct insert using sqlPlus it failed with error "SP2-0734: unknown command beginning ... "

I tryed set escape without success.

To achieve, I created a file insert.sql on filesystem with

insert into testtable (testtext) value ('Please dial *001 for help');

Then from sqlPlus I executed

@insert.sql

And row was inserted.

Justin's answer is the way to go, but also as an FYI you can use the chr() function with the ascii value of the character you want to insert. For this example it would be:

INSERT INTO STUDENT(name, class_id) VALUES ('Samantha', 'Java_22 '||chr(38)||' Oracle_14'); 

We can use another way as well for example to insert the value with special characters 'Java_22 & Oracle_14' into db we can use the following format..

'Java_22 '||'&'||' Oracle_14'

Though it consider as 3 different tokens we dont have any option as the handling of escape sequence provided in the oracle documentation is incorrect.

To Insert values which has got '&' in it. Use the folloiwng code.

Set define off;

Begin

INSERT INTO STUDENT(name, class_id) VALUES ('Samantha', 'Java_22 & Oracle_14');

End ;

And Press F5 from Oracle or Toad Editors.

Try 'Java_22 '||'&'||' Oracle_14'

For special character set, you need to check UNICODE Charts. After choose your character, you can use sql statement below,

SELECT COMPOSE('do' || UNISTR('\0304' || 'TTTT')) FROM dual;

--

doTTTT

you can simply escape & by following a dot. try this:

INSERT INTO STUDENT(name, class_id) VALUES ('Samantha', 'Java_22 &. Oracle_14');

If an escape character is to be added at the beginning or the end like "JAVA", then use:

INSERT INTO STUDENT(name, class_id) VALUES ('Samantha', ''||chr(34)||'JAVA'||chr(34)||'');

There are 3 ways to do so :

1) Simply do SET DEFINE OFF; and then execute the insert stmt.

2) Simply by concatenating reserved word within single quotes and concatenating it. E.g. Select 'Java_22 ' || '& '|| ':' || ' Oracle_14' from dual --(:) is an optional.

3) By using CHR function along with concatenation. E.g. Select 'Java_22 ' || chr(38)||' Oracle_14' from dual

Hope this help !!!