This is a quick follow-up to part 1, with a couple more observations about dynamic parameters.

Embedded Apostrophes

Here’s one I can’t believe I forgot to mention the other day:  A major ExecuteSQL headache that dynamic parameters can alleviate is the dreaded “embedded apostrophe” problem. In case you aren’t familiar with it, if your text string contains an embedded apostrophe, in standard SQL you must escape it by prepending another apostrophe, for example compare these two “standard” (non-dynamic) queries:

As you might expect, you don’t have to worry about this if you instead use a dynamic parameter… just quote the search term the way you would any FileMaker text string (i.e., in double quotes) and go about your business.

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I have a confession: when I first read about dynamic parameters in the Help entry for ExecuteSQL, my initial reaction was, “Why do they have to make it so darn complicated?”

I have another confession: I am now singing a very different tune. I’ll get to the reason for this in a minute, but first let’s compare two ExecuteSQL statements, which were discussed last month in FM 12 ExecuteSQL, part 1.

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