Thank you. Apparently I never saw this response, for some reason...
So reading that leaves me confused on one point, which is the right way to do it if you're inserting an integer? would this be right? is there a difference between the single and double quotes here?
postgres=# create table foo(a int);
CREATE TABLE
Time: 276,386 ms
postgres=# insert into foo values('1');
INSERT 0 1
Time: 72,357 ms
(presume id is a bigint) `insert into foo ( id ) values ( :'var' )`
double quotes are used for identifiers. 'xxxx' is string literal, "xxxx" is sql identifier like table name or column name.
This is a bit of cheating since the system, knowing that "a" is of type "int", is allowed to implicitly cast an unadorned/untyped literal '1'.
What is really happening is:
insert into foo (a) values ('1'::integer);
IOW - it is OK - and cheap - to place integers into single quotes and then cast them in order to add anti-injection features to the query.