Replace an inverted comma with an apostrophe or typogropher's quote

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Replace an inverted comma with an apostrophe or typogropher's quote

webskater

SSCarpal Tunnel

Points: 4214
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April 10, 2016 at 4:49 am

#315302

As a front end developer, some years ago, I mentioned to a sql developer who I got data from that it was a nuisance whenever a string contained a single quotation mark as, if I had to pass the string to a javascript function, I had to always remember to escape it. He said 'I'll replace any single quotation marks with a proper apostrophe, or typographer's quotation mark.' Which he did - and it was great - I never had to take that into account again when passing data to a javascript function. Unfortunately, he is no longer around to ask how he did it. In Transact SQL, how can I replace a single quotation mark in a field value with an apostrophe or typographer's quotation mark - in a Select statement?

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Sean Lange SSC Guru Points: 286590 More actions · Answer 1

With the replace function. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms186862.aspx

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webskater SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4214 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks for your reply. This has just come up again and I still can't get it to work.

Say I have an email address like FredO'Shea@fred.cam

The apostrophe in that email address is a typographer's quote that was put in there by typing Alt 0146 - it is not an ASCII character

If that email address is set to a variable called @EmailAddress and I try to Replace it using

REPLACE(@EmailAddress, ''', ''') - it doesn't work.

Sorry, it is hard to show here - in the REPLACE function above it should contain, from the left ...

The variable @EmailAddress,

An inverted comma, a typographer's single closing quotation mark, an inverted comma,

An inverted comma, an inverted comma, an inverted comma,

I have tried doubling up on the single quotes - but I can't get it to replace the typographer's quotation mark with a ASCII single inverted comma.

(The reason for this is that an Exchange Mail Server rejects an email address with a typographer's quote in it).

ChrisM@Work SSC Guru Points: 186127 More actions · Answer 3

SELECT NCHAR(8217); -- Alt 0146

-- Replace right closing quote with single quote

DECLARE @EmailAddress NVARCHAR(100) = 'FredO' + NCHAR(8217) + 'Shea@fred.com';

SELECT @EmailAddress;

SELECT REPLACE(@EmailAddress,NCHAR(8217),'''');

-- Replace single quote with right closing quote

SET @EmailAddress = 'FredO''Shea@fred.com';

SELECT @EmailAddress;

SELECT REPLACE(@EmailAddress,'''',NCHAR(8217));

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