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fix(spanner): escape embedded backticks in dbapi escape_name#17810

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fix-spanner-dbapi-escape-name
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fix(spanner): escape embedded backticks in dbapi escape_name#17810
sakthivelmanii wants to merge 1 commit into
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fix-spanner-dbapi-escape-name

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In google-cloud-spanner DB-API, escape_name() did not check for or double embedded backtick characters (`) when wrapping identifiers. This allowed identifiers containing backticks to break out of backtick-quoted identifier scopes (CWE-89 identifier injection).

This commit updates escape_name() to:

  • Detect embedded backtick characters in identifier names.
  • Escape internal backticks by doubling them (replace("`", "``")) when enclosing identifiers in backticks.
  • Add unit test cases for embedded backticks in test_escape_name.

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Fixes #<issue_number_goes_here> 🦕

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sakthivelmanii requested a review from a team as a code owner July 21, 2026 17:59

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Code Review

This pull request updates the escape_name function in parse_utils.py to escape backticks by doubling them, and adds corresponding unit tests. The review feedback points out a critical security vulnerability (SQL injection) where identifiers containing other special characters (such as comments or semicolons) but no spaces, hyphens, or backticks could bypass escaping. A code suggestion is provided to resolve this by strictly validating identifiers and escaping any that are not valid regular ASCII identifiers.

Comment thread packages/google-cloud-spanner/google/cloud/spanner_dbapi/parse_utils.py Outdated
@sakthivelmanii
sakthivelmanii force-pushed the fix-spanner-dbapi-escape-name branch 2 times, most recently from 044851b to 15dcb8a Compare July 22, 2026 04:49
@sakthivelmanii
sakthivelmanii requested a review from olavloite July 23, 2026 07:51
@sakthivelmanii
sakthivelmanii force-pushed the fix-spanner-dbapi-escape-name branch from 15dcb8a to 579da90 Compare July 23, 2026 08:13
@parthea

parthea commented Jul 23, 2026

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Wait for #17880 to be merged first

Done. Please merge main into this branch

@parthea
parthea marked this pull request as draft July 24, 2026 18:49
@sakthivelmanii
sakthivelmanii force-pushed the fix-spanner-dbapi-escape-name branch from 579da90 to b115b8e Compare July 27, 2026 06:42
@sakthivelmanii
sakthivelmanii marked this pull request as ready for review July 27, 2026 08:03
)

if not is_valid_regular_identifier or name.upper() in SPANNER_RESERVED_KEYWORDS:
return "`" + name.replace("`", "``") + "`"

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GoogleSQL does not use 'doubled quotes' to escape quotes inside quotes. Instead, you should use a backslash for that:

-- This is invalid in GoogleSQL
select 1 as `fo``o`

-- This is the correct way to escape a quote in GoogleSQL
select 1 as `fo\`o`

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Done

"""
Apply backticks to the name that either contain '-' or
' ', or is a Cloud Spanner's reserved keyword.
Apply backticks to the name if it is not a valid regular ASCII identifier,

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There are more corner cases that need to be thought through here:

  1. Backslash (see also below): Backslash starts an escape sequence in GoogleSQL, unless itself is escaped. Should we escape backslashes as well to be consistent with how we handle existing backticks in identifiers? E.g. what should we do with a string like this: "test\"
  2. Identifiers with multiple elements (dot operator): The identifier my_schema.my_table is now turned into this: `my_schema.my_table`.
  3. Already quoted identifiers: `my_table` becomes ``my_table``

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Done

In google-cloud-spanner DB-API, escape_name() did not check for or double embedded backtick characters (`) when wrapping identifiers. This allowed identifiers containing backticks to break out of backtick-quoted identifier scopes (CWE-89 identifier injection).

This commit updates escape_name() to:
- Detect embedded backtick characters in identifier names.
- Escape internal backticks by doubling them (replace("`", "``")) when enclosing identifiers in backticks.
- Add unit test cases for embedded backticks in test_escape_name.
@sakthivelmanii
sakthivelmanii force-pushed the fix-spanner-dbapi-escape-name branch from b115b8e to 0235fa6 Compare July 27, 2026 09:14
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3 participants