Select a column where its name has quotation marks in postgresql

Question

The word end is a reserved word in Postgres, so I have a column named "end" in my database. So how do i execute a query to select that column? Query:

"SELECT column1, column2, column3, "end" FROM table";

doesn't work. I have also tried some combinations with backslash but nothing helped. I know that there are many other ways to solve this issue (renaming the column :) ) but I would like to learn how to find a solution in my occasion.

"Doesn't work". How exactly does it "not work"? That should be fine. Show the *exact text* of the error message. — Craig Ringer, May 29 '14 at 12:44
using quotation mark in column name... seems like swimming when it is raining... — zkanoca, May 29 '14 at 12:45
Check this out, Escaping keywords: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7651417/escaping-keyword-like-column-names-in-postgres — bloodyKnuckles, May 29 '14 at 12:48
I think the problem is the query as i am using `$sql = "SELECT column1, column2, column3, "end" FROM table"; $result = pg_query($link, $sql);` — user3169832, May 29 '14 at 12:56
just get your quotes right and escape the quotes when needed. It's a PHP issue, not a SQL issue. — Frank Heikens, May 29 '14 at 13:51

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 29 '14 at 14:00

The query string is

SELECT column1, column2, column3, "end" FROM table

No enclosing quotes around the query.

Preparing this string in your client is a problem of the client language. In PHP, you could simply use single quotes, which would be the better choice here to begin with, since nothing needs to be interpreted inside the string:

'SELECT column1, column2, column3, "end" FROM table'

If you need double quotes to interpret parts of the string you could concatenate individual parts of the string or escape double quotes within ...

Everything is simpler if you just don't use reserved words as identifiers to begin with.

Select a column where its name has quotation marks in postgresql

1 Answers1