What is the standard way of adding carriage returns in line feeds to SQL queries?

Question

What is the standard syntax for adding carriage returns in line feeds to raw SQL queries?

I'm not quite sure what you are asking. Are you asking how to include literal carriage returns and line feeds in strings within SQL? As in, be able to insert a string that contains a carriage return, or select for something that includes a linefeed? — Brian Campbell, Nov 21 '12 at 07:27
@BrianCampbell Yes. I want to be able to add text into memo fields so when it is displayed in text controls, the lines will break where it is so in the SQL? — vfclists, Nov 21 '12 at 07:29

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 21 '12 at 07:45

The standard way to insert a carriage return or linefeed into a string literal in a query is to simply include it verbatim within the string literal. There are no escape characters in SQL strings; the only character that can't be included in a string is a single quote (') character, which can be escaped by doubling it.

For example, to insert a row containing a newline:

INSERT INTO table VALUES ('this is a string
with a newline');

If you want to control whether a carriage return, linefeed, or bot will be inserted, you will need to make sure that one or both of them appear in the literal source.

Some implementations implement C-style escape sequences; in these implementations, you could write '\n', '\r', '\r\n' to add newlines, carriage returns, or CRLFs. However, this syntax is non-standard, so it won't be portable to all databases.

What is the standard way of adding carriage returns in line feeds to SQL queries?

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