Question

why is this not working ? It’s something about the commandstring syntax near = but I can’t seem to figure it out, the online examples seem exactly the same.
Edit: Activated In is a column.

examples from How to select data from database with many filter options?

private void btnDist_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    string cmdText = "SELECT * FROM Inventory WHERE Rep <> '#NA' AND Activated In = '#NA'";
    SqlDataAdapter adapter = new SqlDataAdapter(cmdText, GetConnection());
    DataSet distDS = new DataSet();
    adapter.Fill(distDS);

    dataGridView1.DataSource = distDS.Tables[0].DefaultView;
}

Answer 1

If the name of the column on your database is Activated In (with a space) then you need to use square brackets when referring to the object / column name in queries, for example:

SELECT * FROM Inventory WHERE Rep <> '#NA' AND [Activated In] = '#NA'

This is because SQL treats spaces as a separator in the query language – square brackets are used to “escape” this (and other characters) in names.

Alternatively if the column is just called Activated then you don’t need the IN bit – either test for equality or test to see if the value is in a given range, but don’t do both.

-- Use this
SELECT * FROM Inventory WHERE Rep <> '#NA' AND Activated = '#NA'
-- Or this
SELECT * FROM Inventory WHERE Rep <> '#NA' AND Activated IN ('#NA', 'Some other value')