Literal Types

INTEGER_LITERAL types can be implicitly converted to any integer type in which the value fits. For example, the integer literal 42 can be implicitly converted to a TINYINT, but the integer literal 1000 cannot be.

String Literals

STRING_LITERAL instances can be implicitly converted to any other type.

For example, we can compare string literals with dates.

SELECT d > '1992-01-01' AS result FROM (VALUES (DATE '1992-01-01')) t(d);

result
false

However, we cannot compare VARCHAR values with dates.

SELECT d > '1992-01-01'::VARCHAR FROM (VALUES (DATE '1992-01-01')) t(d);

Binder Error: Cannot compare values of type DATE and type VARCHAR - an explicit cast is required
LINE 1: SELECT d > '1992-01-01'::VARCHAR FROM (VALUES (D...
                 ^

Escape String Literals

To include special characters such as newline, use E escape the string. Both the uppercase (E'...') and lowercase variants (e'...') work.

SELECT E'Hello\nworld' AS msg;
-- or
SELECT e'Hello\nworld' AS msg;

┌──────────────┐
│     msg      │
│   varchar    │
├──────────────┤
│ Hello\nworld │
└──────────────┘

The following backslash escape sequences are supported:

Escape sequence	Name	ASCII code
`\b`	backspace	8
`\f`	form feed	12
`\n`	newline	10
`\r`	carriage return	13
`\t`	tab	9

Dollar-Quoted String Literals

DuckDB supports dollar-quoted string literals, which are surrounded by double-dollar symbols ($$):

SELECT $$Hello
world$$ AS msg;

┌──────────────┐
│     msg      │
│   varchar    │
├──────────────┤
│ Hello\nworld │
└──────────────┘

SELECT $$The price is $9.95$$ AS msg;

msg
The price is $9.95

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Last modified: 2024-04-25

Null Literals

Integer Literals

String Literals

Escape String Literals

Dollar-Quoted String Literals

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