Here is the solution for my some minutes before posted question: the only thing which was wrong was the quote-char, if I use "'" right-qote instead of "´" (on my keyboard it looks like a vertical quote) it works. They look very similar, in Python I use "´" (vertical) regards Joachim Schmitz some minutes ago I wrote: Hi, I try to accomplish a very simple thing: the select statement shall finally look like this: select * from data where name LIKE 'Ab%' As input in form the user should only give "Ab" and the "%" should be added by default. I tried: select * from data where name LIKE <!--#var expr="name + ´%´" sql_quote--> but that gives a name + ´%´ ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax Any help is welcome Joachim Schmitz