[CASSANDRA-18170] Document cqlsh single quote escaping behavior on complex vs simple types

• Type: Task
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Normal
• Resolution: Duplicate
• Component/s: Documentation, Tool/cqlsh
• Change Category: Semantic
• Complexity: Low Hanging Fruit
• Platform: All

Test and Documentation Plan

Update CQLSH Documentation

• Assignee: Yaman Ziadeh
• Reporter: Paulo Motta

Authors

Yaman Ziadeh

Reviewers

Paulo Motta

• Created: 17/Jan/23 20:06
• Updated: 17/May/23 18:51
• Resolved: 17/May/23 18:51

Description

cqlsh escapes single quotes on complex types but not on text types:

Table: CREATE TABLE test (name text, foo map<text,text>, PRIMARY KEY(name));

Insert:

INSERT INTO test (name, foo) VALUES ( 'jos''emy',{'foo':'josemy''s houñse'});

Query: SELECT * FROM test;

 name    | foo
-----------+-----------------------------
 jos'emy | {'foo': 'josemy''s houñse'}

This behavior is confusing because simple text fields containing single quotes are not escaped on cqlsh, while complex types (such as collections or UDTs) are escaped. A couple of tickets were created to clarify this behavior: CASSANDRA-10263 and CASSANDRA-15458.

We should probably document this behavior on cqlsh documentation to avoid confusion.

Issue Links

• duplicates: CASSANDRA-18185 Accumulate all the `docs` PR from GitHub into a single patch
• is related to: CASSANDRA-10263 Insert in Cassandra in a collection, values with single quote
• is related to: CASSANDRA-15458 CQL: Unable to escape single quote in a map<int,text> attribute