Python Google Ads: Escape user input for GAQL queries

[Alex Mohr]

What's the best way to escape user input for use in GAQL queries when searching with the GoogleAdsService with the Python client library?

For example:

search = "Something from user input"

query = f"SELECT campaign.id FROM campaign WHERE campaign.name LIKE '%{search}%'"

google_ads_service.search(customer_id='XXXYYYZZZZ', query=query)

If the user enters quote or backslash characters, the query breaks

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi Alex,

You can get support for the Python Client Library from its issue tracker.

Regards,

Aryeh Baker Google Ads API Team

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[Alex Mohr]

This seems like an issue with all of the client libraries. How do you build a GAQL query with untrusted user input? is there a query builder interface that sanitizes input?

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hello Alex,

Thanks for getting back to us.

You can utilize this Google Ads Query Builder to validate your query. With regard to those escape characters inputted by users, you can use regular expressions to validate user inputs.

As an aside, we suggest that you raise this to the client library owners (issue tracker for Python) as also mentioned by Aryeh.

Regards,

Mark Kevin Albios Google Ads API Team

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