John Jayaseelan (john.jayaseelan@caravan-club.co.uk) writes:
> The following parameter query resulted the error below. Is the following
> syntax correct?
>
> select * from branch where branch_code = ?

Depends on which context you issued it in. It is not legal T-SQL. If you
run this from ISQL, which uses DB-Library that does not intercept the
SQL string, you get:

Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Server KES-METS-, Line 1
Line 1: Incorrect syntax near '?'.

But if you run it from Query Analyzer, you get a more puzzling mesage:

>[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]COUNT field incorrect or syntax error

Note here that it does not say [SQL Server]. So this message comes from
the ODBC driver, because in the ODBC syntax, the ? is a special token
for a parameter holder. I don't the ODBC syntax well, so I cannot say
whether you can actually use this syntax successfully from QA. Normally,
you use this syntax when you pass SQL statements from application code.

--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, sommar@algonet.se

Books Online for SQL Server SP3 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinf...2000/books.asp