Escaping Special Characters in SharePoint Search Query

Question

I am trying to create a free text search in SharePoint 2010 using code behind. The code to create my query is shown below:

StringBuilder query = new StringBuilder();
query.Append("SELECT FileLeafRef, Title, Facility ");
query.Append("FROM Scope() ");
query.Append("WHERE (\"SCOPE\" = 'Order') ");
query.Append("AND ImportStatus <> 'Deleted' ");
query.Append(string.Format("AND FREETEXT ('{0}*') ", searchWord));
return query.ToString();

While this works for singe word searches, it does not work for searches that contain apostrophes (i.e. the word physician's). If I do search for the word "physician's" I get a malformed query exception.

I have tried html encoding the query (didn't work), tried back-slashing the apostrophe (didn't work) and tried using double apostrophes as an escape sequence (that didn't work either). I have Googled high and low for a solution but can't find one. Some solutions proposed on this site with similar questions hasn't helped either.

How can I make my query work with apostrophes and other special characters? There must be away.

Answer 1

Did you try to add double slash by modifying the code as below:-

StringBuilder query = new StringBuilder();
query.Append("SELECT FileLeafRef, Title, Facility ");
query.Append("FROM Scope() ");
query.Append("WHERE (\"SCOPE\" = 'Order') ");
query.Append("AND ImportStatus <> 'Deleted' ");
query.Append(string.Format("AND FREETEXT ('{0}*') ", searchWord.Replace("\'","\\'")));
return query.ToString();

For other special characters I guess SharePoint would handle it, this apostrophe is actually breaking the SQL Search query for SharePoint Search hence the malformed query exception is there.

Answer 2

Not sure why it didn't work the first time, but using an apostrophe to escape the apostrophe is the correct answer. So in my example physician's would become physician''s