escaping single quotes

[Sean Gillies]

On May 3, 2005, at 10:45 AM, Ryan, Adam wrote:

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Paul Scott [mailto:pscott at UWC.AC.ZA]
>> Sent: Monday, May 02, 2005 4:50 AM
>> To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
>> Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] escaping single quotes
>>
>>
>> Two other things you could try:
>>
>> use htmlspecialchars();
>>
>> or str_replace the "'" with '
>>
>> That will make it look like ' . $gemnaam;
>>
>> which will echo to 'genmaan
>>
>> --Paul
>>
>>>>> Ace Suares <ace at SUARES.NL> 05/02/05 1:30 PM >>>
>> On Monday 02 May 2005 5:08, Paul Scott wrote:
>>> One word:
>>>
>>> addslashes();
>>>
>>> PHP does it for you with the function addslashes(); '[GEMNAAM]'=
>>> addslashes('$gemnaam');
>>
>> Tried that, didn't work. A \' is not recognized by mapserver.
>> Correct me if I am wrong.
>>
>> I got the tip from some else (off-list) to us two single
>> quotes in a row, like '[GEMNAAM]'=''s-Gravenhage' Haven't
>> tested it yet.
>>
>> I would prefer that mapserver/mapscript would honour addslashes().
>>
>> _Ace
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --Paul
>>>
>>>>>> Ace Suares <ace at SUARES.NL> 05/02/05 4:53 AM >>>
>>>
>>> dear list,
>>>
>>> I have the following situation:
>>>
>>> 1. a column in my shapefile (.dbf) that is called GEMNAAM
>>> 2. 482 gemeentes (counties), 3 of them starting with an ' (an
>> apostroph
>>> or
>>> single quote).
>>> 3. a filter that looks like '[GEMNAAM]'='$gemnaam'
>>> where $gemnaam iterates over (some of) the 482 gemeentes
>>>
>>> The problem seems to be that the single quote in the
>> $gemnaam is not
>>> being escaped, and I have no idea how to escape it.
>>>
>>> Is there an escape mechanism for single quotes ?
>>>
>>> I tried double quotes i.e. '[GEMNAAM]'="$gemnaam" but
>> apparently to no
>>> avail.
>>>
>>> Much obliged for any hint. (However, that won't bring back
>> the past 4
>>> hours of my life).
>>>
>>> _ace
>>
>> --
>> It's not possible to treat coherently that which is incoherent.
>>         - Date's Incoherence Principle
>>
>> Ace Suares' Internet Consultancy
>> mail: PObox 2599, 4800 CN Breda, The Netherlands
>> phone: +31 6 244 33 608 (Jan Veuger, support Netherlands)
>> emergency: +599 786 23 73
>> voicemail & fax: +31 848 707 705
>> web: http://www.suares.nl email: support at suares.nl
>>
>
> Ace,
>
> Have you solved this problem?  We might have similar but different
> problems
> because I'm using Python mapscript but I found that a field that has
> any
> apostrophe in any record in rendered unsearchable no matter what I do.
>
> Adam
>
>

Adam, I have a new idea: when you have apostrophes in your records,
write your expression using double quotes only, like so

    qstring = '("[FNAME]" =~ "Foo")'

I guessing that MapServer can't properly evaluate expressions in which
a single quote appears on the left side as a string-casting operator,
and on the right side as a literal value.

Sean


--
Sean Gillies
sgillies at frii dot com
http://zcologia.com