My ticket was closed - http://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/470
I'd like to clarify the reasoning, since I think it pertains to a larger issue. My understanding of Adrian's comment is that there currently is no infrastructure in Django to escape special characters in strings in a way that is specific to each backend. Admittedly, I haven't dug in very far yet, but that seems like an odd omission. The question is: Does this reflect a policy- 'we do not concern ourselves with quoting and leave that task to the backend' or is it rather a simple statement of reality, which might change in the future?
