Question: Trying to replace a single backslash in a large db. Was going to run an Update Replace query on one column, but I can't figure out how to replace a single backslash. There was some poor updates done and these slashes need to be changed to another character, they are not escaping anything and do not perform any relevant function.

```
SELECT
REPLACE (
    "Some\s string\s with slashe\s",
    '\\',
    '  something  '
)

```

When I run this, the output is: "Somes strings with slashes"

Is there any way to do a true replace on a single slash? No matter what I put in the replace parameter, it just eliminates the single backslash, but doesn't actually replace it. Not sure if this is a bug or I'm just missing something.

I have tried:

```
SELECT
REPLACE (
    "Some\s string\s with slashe\s",
    '\',
    '  something  '
)

```

and I get:

[Err] 1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '\')' at line 1

Answer: 
`REPLACE( )` doesn't need to be escaped

```
select replace("Some\s string\s with slashe\s", '\\', '  something  ');

```

**UPDATE 1**

I think you want to permanently replace it. Right? Use `UPDATE` not `SELECT`

```
UPDATE tableName
SET    columnName = replace(columnName, '\\', '#');

```
The parameters of replace() don't need escaping:

select replace('A\B\C', '\', '\');

output:

```
A\\\\B\\C

```

So this will work:

```
select Name from T where Name = replace('A\\B\C', '\', '\\');

```

AS seen [HERE](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10059450/mysql-replace-backslash-in-strings)