Sorry about that, my bad...I jumped too quick.

Matt is correct with the 'char(39)'. I still could not get a similar construct to run in the 'exec' statement.

I had to pull the sql out in to a separate variable, build the sql in it, then exec(@sql).

declare @username varchar(30)

select @username = 'AAATestUser'

declare @sql varchar(1000)

select @sql = 'select * from userstable where username = ' + char(39) + @username + char(39) -- (all of that on one row)

exec(@sql)

If I tried to do the exec and build the string at the same time I kept getting errors, running in Query Analyzer. I also checked an SP I wrote a some time ago that is very similar (dynamic sql) and I had constructed it in a variable and then exec(variable), so I probably ran into this before.

One of those days.