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Escape SQL Server Identifiers

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You can often use the Windows PowerShell back-tick escape character (`) to escape characters that are allowed in SQL Server delimited identifiers but not Windows PowerShell path names. Some characters, however, cannot be escaped. For example, you cannot escape the colon character (:) in Windows PowerShell. Identifiers with that character must be encoded. Encoding is more reliable than escaping because encoding works for all characters.

Before You Begin

The back-tick character (`) is usually on the key in the upper left of the keyboard, under the ESC key.

Examples

This is an example of escaping a # character:

cd SQLSERVER:\SQL\MyComputer\MyInstance\MyDatabase\MySchema\`#MyTempTable

This is an example of escaping the parenthesis when specifying (local) as a computer name:

Set-Location SQLSERVER:\SQL\`(local`)\DEFAULT

See Also

SQL Server Identifiers in PowerShell
SQL Server PowerShell Provider
SQL Server PowerShell