A helper function for escaping variables passed into formulas in the Airtable API

airtable_escape.py

from typing import Any, Optional, Union
from decimal import Decimal


class AirtableBadTypeException(Exception):
    def __init__(self, val: Any):
        self.val = val
        super().__init__(f"unexpected type variable type: {type(val)}")


def airtable_escape_variable(val: Optional[Union[str, int, float, bool]]) -> str:
    """
    Escape `val` so it can be passed into an Airtable formula, e.g.,

    None:
    > None -> "BLANK()"

    strings:
    > 'hello,\nit\'s "me"' -> '"hello,\\nit\'s \\"me\\""'

    Notice that the string is wrapped in quotes (similar to how
    JSON.stringify works), so it can be used directly in a formula.

    numbers:
    > 1 -> '1'
    > 1.2 -> '1.2'
    > Decimal('1.23') -> '1.23'

    booleans:
    > True -> '1'
    > False -> '0'

    It may be used like: `f'{{email}} = {airtable_escape_variable(email)}'`
    """
    if val is None:
        return "BLANK()"

    if isinstance(val, str):
        escaped_val = airtable_escape_str(val)
        return f'"{escaped_val}"'

    if isinstance(val, bool):
        return str(1 if val else 0)

    if isinstance(val, (int, float, Decimal)):
        return str(val)

    raise AirtableBadTypeException(val)


def airtable_escape_str(val: str, wrap_is_double_quotes=True) -> str:
    """
    Escape special characters so val can be used as a string in an
    Airtable formula
    """
    val = (
        val.replace("\r", "")  # strip windows carriage returns
        .replace("\\", "\\\\")  # escape backslashes
        .replace("\n", "\\n")  # escape line feeds
        .replace("\t", "\\t")  # escape tabs
    )

    # escape quotes, can't indiscriminately escape both, have to pick
    # just one and wrap with the other
    if wrap_is_double_quotes:
        return val.replace('"', '\\"')
    else:
        return val.replace("'", "\\'")

tests.py

from airtable_escape import airtable_escape_variable, AirtableBadTypeException


if __name__ == "__main__":
    tests = [
        (None, "BLANK()"),
        (1, "1"),
        (1.2, "1.2"),
        (Decimal("1.23"), "1.23"),
        (True, "1"),
        (False, "0"),
        ("hey you", '"hey you"'),
        ("hey you\\", '"hey you\\\\"'),
        ("hey\nyou", '"hey\\nyou"'),
        ("hey\\\nyou", '"hey\\\\\\nyou"'),
        ('hey\\\nyou "it\'s me"', '"hey\\\\\\nyou \\"it\'s me\\""'),
    ]

    for val, expected in tests:
        actual = airtable_escape_variable(val)
        assert (
            expected == actual
        ), f"fail for {val}\n\texpected: {expected}\n\tactual: {actual}"
        print(f"✅ {val} -> {actual}")

    try:
        val = airtable_escape_variable({})
    except AirtableBadTypeException as e:
        print(f"✅ expected {e}")
    else:
        assert False, f"expected bad type exception, got: {val}"

    print("Passed all tests!")

You may use this like:

from airtable import Airtable

# given the variables: base, table, email

client = Airtable(base, table, api_key=settings.AIRTABLE_KEY)
client.get_all(formula=f'{{email}} = {airtable_escape_variable(email)}')

More context in this post: https://mrcoles.com/escape-variables-airtable-api/