How to Query for Forward Slashes (/) in MySQL\'s WHERE Clause?

Querying for Forward Slashes () in MySQL

When querying for forward slashes () with MySQL's WHERE clause, two distinct scenarios arise: when using the equal (=) operator and when using the LIKE operator.

Escaping for = Operator

For the = operator, no additional escaping of is required. MySQL automatically escapes it to maintain the integrity of the value being compared. In your example query, (SELECT * FROM titles where title = 'test') would return a record with the title 'test', as expected.

Escaping for LIKE Operator

In contrast, the LIKE operator requires double escaping of forward slashes () because it interprets as a special character for escaping. To search for a single in a LIKE clause, you need to specify it as instead. This is because MySQL strips backslashes twice: once during parsing and again during pattern matching.

In your example query, (SELECT * FROM titles where title LIKE 'test\') would return a record with the title 'test', as the double backslashes () compensate for the stripping during processing.

Changing Escape Character

If desired, you can customize the escape character for LIKE by using the ESCAPE keyword. For instance, you could specify:

SELECT * FROM `titles` WHERE title LIKE 'test\' ESCAPE '|'

In this case, the pipe (|) serves as the escape character instead of the default backslash (). This allows you to use in your LIKE queries without having to double-escape it.

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