Using a dollar sign in a filter variable value causes "Illegal group reference" error

Bug reports
1

We have just upgraded to 0.34.3, from 0.31.2, and one of our internal users has come across an issue. They had an existing native SQL question that used a variable field and was working fine prior to the upgrade. However, post-upgrade, the question now breaks on a particular value. The value happens to include a dollar sign ($). They receive an “Illegal group reference” error.

I was able to recreate the error using just the internal metabase datasource, with a simple query:

SELECT *
FROM report_card
WHERE {{name}}

When the name variable is set to a value that contains a $ in it, the same error occurs.

  • Browser version: Chrome Version 80.0.3987.149 (occurs in other browsers such as Firefox 68.5.0esr )
  • OS: client is running Windows10; Metabase is running on RHEL 7 (7.7 (Maipo))
  • Metabase backing DB: issue first found with Oracle 12, but also recreated with MySQL 5.7.23
  • Hosting environment: Docker image running in OpenShift
  • Metabase version: 0.34.3

Steps to recreate “Illegal group reference”:

  1. Navigate to Ask a question
  2. Select Native query
  3. Select Metabase internal database
  4. Enter the following query: SELECT * FROM report_card WHERE {{name}}
  5. In the Variables tab, set the Variable type to Field Filter -> Report card -> Name
  6. Add variable filter of test$
  7. Click play button
  8. Get error
2

Shoot - just realized I was searching for the wrong error string, and this is a previously reported bug. Here and https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/10002

Sorry!

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