Include a single quote in a string

Question

I want to have a dropdown from MySQL data where I want <option value ='and acode ='Aircraft1''>, including the two single quotes to pass it into a query. I'm including a backslash already, but it's not working. What's wrong with my code?

<?php
  $asql = "SELECT * FROM aircraft";
  $aresult = mysql_query($asql);
?>
Aircraft:
<select name="aircraft">
<option value="and (acode = 'RP-C1086' or acode='RP-C1728')" checked/>All</option>
<?php
  while($arow=mysql_fetch_array($aresult))
  {
    echo "<option value='and acode=\'" . $arow['reg'] . "\''>" . $arow['reg'] . "</option>";
  } ?>
</select>

Answer 1

From the MySQL manual:

There are several ways to include quote characters within a string:

• A “'” inside a string quoted with “'” may be written as “''”.

• A “"” inside a string quoted with “"” may be written as “""”.

• Precede the quote character by an escape character (“\”).

• A “'” inside a string quoted with “"” needs no special treatment and need not be doubled or escaped. In the same way, “"” inside a string quoted with “'” needs no special treatment.

When coding in PHP, remember to use \\ in a string literal to get a single \ in the string value.

If you want to escape the quote in an HTML attribute, replace the ' with ". Alternatively, quote the attribute value with ". These are the techniques to use regardless of where the string value came from. See this question.