Quotation marks

String literals need to be delimited with single or double quotation marks.

In the Genero BDL language, string literals are delimited by single (') or double (") quotation marks:

'Valid character string'
"Another valid character string"

Do not mix double and single quotation marks as delimiters of the same string. The following is not a valid character string:

'Not A valid character string"

To include literal quotation marks within a quoted string, precede each literal quotation mark with the backslash (\), or else enclose the string between a pair of the opposite type of quotation marks:

MAIN
   DISPLAY "Type 'Y' if you want to reformat your disk."
   DISPLAY 'Type "Y" if you want to reformat your disk.'
   DISPLAY 'Type \'Y\' if you want to reformat your disk.'
END MAIN

A string literal can be written on multiple lines. The compiler merges lines by removing the newline character.

In the SQL language, the standard specifications recommend that you use single quotes for string literals and double quotes for database object identifiers like table or column names. When accessing a non-Informix database, double quotation marks might not be recognized as database object name delimiters. As a general rule, use single quoted string literals in SQL statements, and use non-quoted, lowercase database object identifiers.