Use of special characters in datatable.select(sql): Encapsulate each of these special chars with "[" and "]". e.g [ will become [[] ] will become []] % will become [%] so "text [abc] test" should look like "text [[]abc[]] test" The simple use of string.replace will not help:

.Replace("[","[[]").Replace("]","[]]")

will produce: "text [[[]]abc[]] test" (not really what we expected). Esp. for brackets you will have to go through some special "escapes":

.Replace("[","<ESCAPE FOR OPEN>").Replace("]","<ESCAPE FOR CLOSE>").Replace("<ESCAPE FOR OPEN>","[[]").Replace("<ESCAPE FOR CLOSE>","[]]")

worked fine for me.