String Literals Escape Sequence Character Represented by Sequence \’ A single quote ( ’ ) character " A double quote ( " ) character \b A backspace character A newline (linefeed) character \r A carriage return character A tab character \Z ASCII 26 (Control+Z); see note following the table \\ A backslash ( \ ) character \% A  %  character; see note following the table \_ A  _  character; see note following the table The ASCII 26 character can be encoded as  \Z  to enable you to work around the problem that ASCII 26 stands for END-OF-FILE on Windows. ASCII 26 within a file causes problems if you try to use  mysql db_name  <  file_name . The  \%  and  \_  sequences are used to search for literal instances of  %  and  _  in pattern-matching contexts where they would otherwise be interpreted as wildcard characters. See the description of the  LIKE operator in Section 12.8.1, “String Comparison Functions and Operators” . If you use  \%  or  \_  outside of pattern-matching contexts, they evaluate to the strings  \%  and  \_ , not to  %  and  _ . There are several ways to include quote characters within a string: •A  ’  inside a string quoted with  ’  may be written as  ’’ . •A  "  inside a string quoted with  "  may be written as  "" . •Precede the quote character by an escape character ( \ ). •A  ’  inside a string quoted with  "  needs no special treatment and need not be doubled or escaped. In the same way,  "  inside a string quoted with  ’  needs no special treatment. The following  SELECT  statements demonstrate how quoting and escaping work: mysql>  SELECT ’hello’, ’"hello"’, ’""hello""’, ’hel’’lo’, ’\’hello’; +-------+---------+-----------+--------+--------+ | hello | "hello" | ""hello"" | hel’lo | ’hello | +-------+---------+-----------+--------+--------+ mysql>  SELECT "hello", "’hello’", "’’hello’’", "hel""lo", ""hello"; +-------+---------+-----------+--------+--------+ | hello | ’hello’ | ’’hello’’ | hel"lo | "hello | +-------+---------+-----------+--------+--------+ mysql>  SELECT ’This
Is
Four
Lines’; +--------------------+ | This Is Four Lines | +--------------------+ mysql>  SELECT ’disappearing\ backslash’; +------------------------+ | disappearing backslash | +------------------------+ 1861