I have a CGI script attempting to store information obtained by a form in a MySQL database. The statement looks something like this:

# $comment contains the user form input

my $sql = "insert into my_table " .
          "(COMMENT) " .
          "values ('$comment')";

my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
my $rc = $sth->execute();
[download]

This works fine when $comment is a bunch of text (e.g. "my comment"), but crashes when $comment contains text including a single quote (e.g. "Ezekiel's comment"). I can parse $comment so it contains "Ezekiel''s comment" i.e. escape the single quote with another single quote, but I am wondering if there is a better way to do this as:

• it will be a pain in the neck to parse every text field the application uses in order to escape single quotes
• I am sure to find myself coming back later parsing the text fields for all sorts of other special characters

Can someone point me in the direction of tools to check incoming CGI parameters and prepare the contents for insertion into a database?

Thanks

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