Adds required escape characters to a single element of a character array.

PRO_ARR_ESCAPE scans the char_element looking for the separator character ( ; ) or an escape character ( ~ ). The function inserts an additional escape character when it finds any of these constructs:

• Escape character followed by a separator character ( ~; )
• Escape character followed by another escape character ( ~~ )
• Escape character followed by a NULL terminator ( ~\0 )

Syntax

PRO_ARR_ESCAPE( 'char_element' )  ;

Parameter

char_element

The character representation of an array element, without any leading or trailing separators. Must be data type NVARCHAR, or VARCHAR, or CHAR.

Notes

• char_element must be data type NVARCHAR, VARCHAR, or CHAR.
• char_element must not be the name of an array column, since the column contains true separators that would be destroyed by this function.

Examples

The following example returns the string 'aa~;aa':

PRO_ARR_ESCAPE('aa;aa') ;

The following example returns the string 'aa~aa'. There is no change, since another special character does not follow the escape character:

PRO_ARR_ESCAPE('aa~aa') ;

This example returns the string 'aa~~;aa':

PRO_ARR_ESCAPE('aa~;aa') ;