How to use use cell references in the WHERE part of a QUERY / IMPORTRANGE formula

Question

Can you tell me what's wrong with my formula?

= QUERY (IMPORTRANGE ("url googlesheets database"; "Data range"); "SELECT Col1 
WHERE Col1 =" A3 "AND Col2 =" B3 "")

The "A3" and "B3" are cells in the active Google Sheets.

Answer 1

The second parameter of the QUERY functions is not using the correct syntax to concatenate values.

Instead of

"SELECT Col1 WHERE Col1 =" A3 "AND Col2 =" B3 ""

if Col1 and Col2 holds only number values use

"SELECT Col1 WHERE Col1 ="& A3 &" AND Col2 ="& B3 

if Col1 and Col2 holds only text values use

"SELECT Col1 WHERE Col1 ='"& A3 &"' AND Col2 = '"& B3 &"'"

NOTES:

• & is the concatenate operator.
• QUERY requires that text values be enclosed using '.