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Version: Nightly

Strings

Strings

Strings can be used to store text values. All text fields can include unicode values, emojis, and tabular and multine breaks.

CREATE person SET text = 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet';

Strings can be created using single quotation marks, or double quotation marks.

CREATE person SET text = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet";

Any string in SurrealDB can include unicode text.

CREATE person SET text = "I ❤️ SurrealDB";

Strings can also include line breaks.

CREATE person SET text = "This
is
over
multiple
lines";

String prefixes​

In SurrealQL, strings can be enthusiastically converted into Record IDs, Datetimes or to UUIDs. String prefixes are a solution to this problem, in that you as the developer get to specify what the "string" contains.

Overview​

Here are a couple of examples of how string prefixes work:

RETURN s"5:20";
RETURN r"person:tobie";

s -> string​

The s prefix tells the parser that the contents of this string is just a string, and likely the most common usecase for string prefixes.

-- Interpeted as a record ID, because of the structure with the semicolon:
RETURN "5:20";
-- Forcefully parsed as just a string
RETURN s"5:20";

r -> record​

The r prefix tells the parser that the contents of this string is a record ID.

RETURN r"person:john";

d -> datetime​

The d prefix tells the parser that the contents of this string is a DateTime.

RETURN d"2023-11-28T11:41:20.262Z";

u -> UUID​

The u prefix tells the parser that the contents of this string is a UUID.

RETURN u"8c54161f-d4fe-4a74-9409-ed1e137040c1";