When variable replacement is performed on all types of variables except profile variables and file variables, and RES-Reach encounters one of the special characters {, }, <, >, ", or ', it will automatically translate them into HTML character references of the form &#nnn.

When special characters are encountered in profile variables and file variables, they are not translated. Thus if a profile variable has the replacement value ', the character will be inserted "as is" into the HTML sent to the browser.

If variable replacement causes HTML character references to be inserted into a SQL query string in the DATA tag, the character references are translated back into unencoded characters before the query is evaluated.

Hint: In general, special characters from the user (forms, database fields, etc.) are translated into HTML character references. Special characters from the programmer (file variables, profile variables, text in template files, etc.) are NOT translated into HTML character references.