A good way to escape quotes in a database query string?

Question

I\'ve tried all manner of Python modules and they either escape too much or in the wrong way. What\'s the best way you\'ve found to escape quotes (\", \') in Python?

Answer 1

The easy and standard way to escape strings, and convert other objects to programmatic form, is to use the built in repr() function. It converts an object into the representation you would need to enter it with manual code.

E.g.:

s = "I'm happy I am \"here\" now"
print repr(s)
>>  'I\'m happy I am "here" now'

No weird hacks, it's built in and it just works for most purposes.