I suspect it is the "%b" that you are attempting to pass to "printf", but is getting eaten by perl interpolation.

Try this to reproduce the issue: 

 perl -e 'print qx|printf "%b" "this is a q\'uot\'ed test|'

[download]
UPDATE:

More likely, each single quote used inside the backticks needs to be double-single quoted replaced by the sequence '"'"' , to escape it.

UPDATE 2:

In the previous example, the backslashes are useless. To produce single quotes in the output, the following works (on Linux (SLES). The O.P had hints that although he's using MSSQL, the binaries (e.g. /usr/bin/printf) point to Linux): 

 perl -e 'print qx|echo "%b" "this is a qu'"'"'oted'\'' test"|,"\n"'

[download]
Note - that the slightly shorter alternate replacement for a single quote '\'' used above also works.

        Profanity is the one language all programmers know best.

In reply to Re: Trying to connect to MSSQL and return result. Script hangs indefinitely. by NetWallah
in thread Trying to connect to MSSQL and return result. Script hangs indefinitely. by Logic_Bomb421

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