# Escape character **URL:** \ **Category:** Community Support\ **Tags:** kdb-and-q\ **Created:** [March 30, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://forum.kx.com/t/escape-character/6546 "2010-03-30T17:15:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Adrian1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f08c70/32.png) [@Adrian1](https://forum.kx.com/u/Adrian1)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://forum.kx.com/t/escape-character/6546/1 "2010-03-30T17:15:00Z")
Hi all,I have some questions on breaking the escape character.for example, I have a trade tabletime sym price size---------------------------09:30:00.000 a 10.75 100How can I make a query with my defined colum header with () or ,like:select MySym[A]:sym, price from tradeMySym[A] price---------------------------a 10.75Adrian ---
**Author:** ![flatyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flatyre](https://forum.kx.com/u/flatyre)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 5:26pm UTC](https://forum.kx.com/t/escape-character/6546/2 "2010-03-30T17:26:00Z")
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.935.3) These are used extensively, so I cant imagine the amount of interesting side effects from doing this - try doing a select from it, just for starters q)tbl:(a:1 2 3;b:5 6 7) ## q)(`$("a[s]d";"j(k)l"))xcol tbl a[s]d j(k)l 1 5 2 6 3 7 ---
**Author:** ![lefevrol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5f8ce5/32.png) [@lefevrol](https://forum.kx.com/u/lefevrol)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://forum.kx.com/t/escape-character/6546/3 "2010-03-30T18:58:00Z")
FWIW, you’ll have similar problems if you try touse a built-in name (e.g., var) as a column name.It’s doable but it’s a bit of a pain.-- O.L. ---
**Author:** ![simon11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7c8e57/32.png) [@simon11](https://forum.kx.com/u/simon11)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 7:55am UTC](https://forum.kx.com/t/escape-character/6546/4 "2010-03-31T07:55:00Z")
nothing compared to the pain you’ll have if you create yourself a table with columns called delete, from and where .Q.res is a list of reserved words, key`.q will give you q names to avoid