Can someone of technical ilk explain why the apostrophe seems to be the Kryptonite of web based XML text?

We run/use various web ordering and proofing sites for my work and everything any thing is done my Moira O'Flanagan or Ryan O'Doherty or Geoff O'Sullivan all the system go into meltdown

Is there a simple reason for it?

I think it's all down to the O's (Ronnie voice)

Badly written/non-existent SQL injection parsing usually.

Yes this threw a report off that I was writing when searching for ' in the field.

Replace with ''

Is there a simple reason for it?

Badly written/non-existent SQL injection parsing usually.

So no its not simple then

Databases use ' to put text into queries.

If the web form doesn't deal with ' properly you can use it to insert unintended actions into the database and make it do things it wasn't meant to do.

Sounds highly likely unlikely

A lot of the things we use were thrown together extensively developed and tested

Try writing

Moira O'Flanagan or Ryan O'Doherty or Geoff O'Sullivan

and be the envy of all your co-workers.