Quick SQL command... those annoying quotes

Never ever forget the importance of details.

Here's an example of why.

I wanted to drop the "default" setting for a column of type string.  Rails' typical migrations do not have a convenient way of doing this, so I had to run an SQL command.

I admit that I at the time was not experienced with SQL.  Nonetheless I went to http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Migration.html to find the answer.  I found this:

Instead of copying and pasting and then editing appropriately, I typed it out... and failed to notice the appearance of the single-quotes.  It's really better to just copy and paste so the tiniest details are taken care of... in this case, typing in ' does not work; you have to use `.

I really wish I had scrutinized every single character - particularly any quotes.  It would have saved me quite some time.

The end result:

execute "ALTER TABLE `free_spaces` ALTER COLUMN `content` DROP DEFAULT"