Escape Character in ODBC Connections?? HELP!

Question

Hi All,
I have a problem : we have a C++ app here that is supposed to attach to an Oracle 8i or 9i database here via a standard ODBC connection.
When this app attempts to do something like this:
INSERT INTO MyTable (MyRow) Values('[testing]')
it fails - it does not like the square brackets in the command. when I copy this into SQL Plus, of course, it runs just fine.
the ODBC link also doesn't like this:
INSERT INTO MyTable (MyRow) Values('/[testing/]') either
or this:
INSERT INTO MyTable (MyRow) Values('[[testing]]') either
or this:
INSERT INTO MyTable (MyRow) Values('`testing`') either
in fact, it appears the following are all reserved characters that oracle's ODBC driver can't handle:
` ' " \ / [ ]
My questions are :
1) Can I find a definitive list of these (Oracle documentation is good on reserved WORDS, but poor on reserved CHARACTERS)
2) what can I use to set an escape character within my ODBC SQL? Is this something I can tweak on the ODBC DSN cofiguration? I know in SQL*Plus you can just say
SET ESCAPE ON
SET ESCAPE "\"
But you can't do that on every SQL Query getting sent through ODBC can you?
Please help!
I

Answer 1

Thanks, but thats not really answering the two
questions I posed, is it? Well you are asking the wrong questions.
The quoted example was just
that, an example. The actual app is calling stored
procedures and not doing simple SQL statements. Using
bound variables is not really an option because the
number and type of parameters being sent down change
continually. This is no reason to not use bind variables. If you do not use bind variables and this is an OLTP database then scaling will not be an option for your application. It can also raise potential security holes due to SQL injection.
The site you quoted is to do with
obtaining recordsets back from stored procedures. We
do not need to obtain recordsets back from stored
procedures. Yes and it also shows how to bind input variables in ODBC calls, does the presence of record sets somehow render this invisible?
>
shall I repeat myself:-
My questions are :
1) Can I find a definitive list of these (Oracle
documentation is good on reserved WORDS, but poor on
reserved CHARACTERS)
As you can run the command in SQL*Plus it should indicate that it is not a reserved character as far as Oracle is concerned. Therefore looking in the Oracle documentation will not get you anywhere. You will need to refer to the documentation for your ODBC driver and the ODBC specification.
2) what can I use to set an escape character within
my ODBC SQL? Is this something I can tweak on the
ODBC DSN cofiguration? I know in SQL*Plus you can
just say
SET ESCAPE ON
SET ESCAPE "\"
I must admit I don't know.