Thanks for the replies.

I had a look at the Execute Statement approach and what I was looking for was to build the Where Clause/Arguments at the front end and pass as a parameter to a stored procedure.

I got a test Execute Statement to work without any arguments and then found this:-
http://www.firebirdsql.org/refdocs/langrefupd15-psql-execstat.html

They say "The argument string cannot contain any parameters." which is basically what i wanted to do. ie pass a string containing the arguments.


so rather than spending more time on this I've got a stored procedure to check the results myself. Heres a snippet:-

begin
/* Was the Payment Terms Strict Days selected ? */
v_pt_stricts_days_found = 0;
if (:ip_pt_use_strict_days = 1) then
begin
if (op_payment_terms_strict_days between :ip_pt_strict_days_from and :ip_pt_strict_days_to) then
begin
v_pt_stricts_days_found = 1;
end
end

/* Was the Payment Terms EOM Days selected ? */
v_pt_eom_days_found = 0;
if (:ip_pt_use_eom_days = 1) then
begin
if (op_payment_terms_eom_days between :ip_pt_eom_days_from and :ip_pt_eom_days_to) then
begin
v_pt_eom_notes_found = 1;
end
end

...



The arguments are optional therefore I cant build them into the where clause especially a comparison on a string field where the user can do a straight/like or containing comparison.

thanks