Problem with passing variable to mssql

I have issues I cant understand passing a sql statement to mssql, most of which work fine, however in some cases, a statement like "SELECT * FROM tblX where value like 'variable%' " will return 0 records when I know they are there. No errors, just 0 records. When I echo the sql string to the page, cut and paste it into SQL query analyzer, the exact same statement returns the expected records. Anyome point me to the answer?? Bill Curry METCAD 217-333-4398