# "Remove the semicolons from the query"

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/remove-the-semicolons-from-the-query/400015
**Category:** Bug
**Tags:** data-explorer
**Created:** [April 6, 2026, 11:37am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/remove-the-semicolons-from-the-query/400015 "2026-04-06T11:37:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![RGJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/rgj/32/523185_2.png) [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2026, 11:37am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/remove-the-semicolons-from-the-query/400015/1 "2026-04-06T11:37:24Z")

</div>

**Problem:**  
When creating a [data explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) query that replaces some HTML entities, I could not save the query because it contained semicolons.

However, these semicolons are not part of the actual DQL syntax and (thus) innocent.

**Reproduce** : create a query `SELECT REPLACE ('argh', '&quot;', '"')`

**Desired** : only complain about semicolons at the end of the query and/or outside of quotes.

**Workaround** : use `chr` and concatenation so `'&quot' || chr(59)` instead of `&quot;`

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/f/5/e/f5ea17470208cf03adbaaf26ebc0b7041bfb5c54.png)

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/remove-the-semicolons-from-the-query/400015)._