Literals

A literal represents a constant value of a built-in data type. Some, but not all, data types can be expressed as literals.

String literals

String literals must be quoted , either with single ( ' ) or double ( " ) quotation marks.

Quoted literals:

Literal

Sample usage

Notes

Quoted string

"abc"
"it's"
'it\'s'
'Title: "Boy"'

Quoted strings enclosed by single ( ' ) quotes can contain unescaped double ( " ) quotes, as well as the inverse.
Backslashes ( \ ) introduce escape sequences. See the Escape sequences for string literals section.
Quoted strings cannot contain newlines, even when preceded by a backslash ( \ ).

Raw string

R"abc+"
r'f\(abc,(.\*),def\)'

Quoted literals that have the raw string literal prefix ( r or R ) are interpreted as raw/regex strings.
Backslash characters ( \ ) do not act as escape characters. If a backslash followed by another character occurs inside the string literal, both characters are preserved.
A raw string cannot end with an odd number of backslashes.
Raw strings are useful for constructing regular expressions.

Escape sequences for string literals

The following table lists all valid escape sequences for representing non-alphanumeric characters in string literals. Any sequence not in this table produces an error.

Escape Sequence

Description

\a

Bell

\b

Backspace

\f

Formfeed

\n

Newline

\r

Carriage Return

\t

Tab

\v

Vertical Tab

\\

Backslash ( \ )

\?

Question Mark ( ? )

\"

Double Quote ( " )

\'

Single Quote ( ' )

\\`

Backtick ( \` )

\ooo

Octal escape, with exactly 3 digits (in the range 0–7). Decodes to a single Unicode character (in string literals) or byte (in bytes literals).

\xhh or \Xhh

Hex escape, with exactly 2 hex digits (0–9 or A–F or a–f). Decodes to a single Unicode character (in string literals) or byte (in bytes literals). Examples:

'\x41' == 'A'
'\x41B' is 'AB'
'\x4' is an error

\uhhhh

Unicode escape, with lowercase 'u' and exactly 4 hex digits. Valid only in string literals or identifiers.Note that the range D800-DFFF is not allowed, as these are surrogate unicode values.

\Uhhhhhhhh

Unicode escape, with uppercase 'U' and exactly 8 hex digits. Valid only in string literals or identifiers.The range D800-DFFF is not allowed, as these values are surrogate unicode values. Also, values greater than 10FFFF are not allowed.

Date literals

To use literal date and time values in a calculated field, you can precede the value with the appropriate marker:

Literal	Canonical date format	Sample usage
Date	YYYY-[M]M-[D]D	`DATE '2021-4-1'`
Date and time	YYYY-[M]M-[D]D [[H]H:[M]M:[S]S]	`DATETIME '2021-5-29 23:59:59'`

Numeric literals

Enter numeric literals using unquoted integer or floating point values. For example:

Literal

Examples

Sample usage

Integer

1, -1, 0

2 + 2
CASE WHEN Cost > 100 THEN...

Floating point

1.23, -1.2345

SQRT(3.14)
FLOOR(-42.123)

Boolean literals

Use the literal values true and false when evaluating Boolean expressions. For example:

 IF( Boolean field 
= true, "yes","no")

IF( Boolean field 
= false, "no","yes")

 IF( Boolean field 
, "yes","no")

IF(not Boolean field 
, "yes","no")