Language features, such as outer joins and scalar function calls, are commonly implemented by database systems. The syntax for these features is often database-specific, even when a standard syntax has been defined. JDBC defines escape sequences that contain the standard syntax for the following language features:

  • Date, time, and timestamp literals
  • Scalar functions such as numeric, string, and data type conversion functions
  • Outer joins
  • Escape characters for wildcards used in LIKE clauses
Note: The Progress DataDirect MongoDB for JDBC driver also supports the custom function escape CAST_TO_NATIVE.

The escape sequence used by JDBC is:

{extension}

The escape sequence is recognized and parsed by the drivers, which replaces the escape sequences with data store-specific grammar.