Allow using double-quotes for escaping.

[Brian Palmer]

I have a csv file that has a column named key, which seems to be a reserved word in octosql? select key from myfile.csv errors with

Error: couldn't parse query: invalid argument syntax error at position 11 near 'key'

I tried escaping the identifier with double-quotes following the SQL standard, but that seems to actually create a string literal in octosql, same as with single-quotes?

❯ octosql 'select "key" from myfile.csv limit 3'
+-------+
| col_0 |
+-------+
| 'key' |
| 'key' |
| 'key' |
+-------+

I also tried brackets (select [key] from) but that errors as well. Is there a way to escape identifiers that I am missing in the docs? Thanks!

[Kuba Martin]

Hey @codekitchen!

You can escape keywords (and also complex file paths) using backticks. So in this case that would be:

SELECT `key` FROM myfile.csv

However, keep in mind that if you're using bash, you need to escape backticks, so the above becomes:

octosql 'SELECT \`key\` FROM myfile.csv'

That said, using double quotes for escaping is a good idea (following the SQL standard, as you said). Thanks for it! It would also partially solve #295.

I'll update the issue title to track adding this (changing from the current behaviour of treating double-quotes as string literals).

[Brian Palmer]

aha, thank you. and 👍 on allowing double-quotes as is standard.

one note: escaping the backticks isn't necessary in bash (and zsh) if you wrap the whole query in single-quotes, e.g. this works fine:

octosql 'select `key` from myfile.csv'

but if wrapping in double-quotes, you do need to escape the backticks:

octosql "select \`key\` from myfile.csv"

[Kuba Martin]

@codekitchen FYI double quotes for literals have been released as part of v0.12.0.