# SQL Query not executing
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sql-query-not-executing/191301
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [July 19, 2019, 2:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sql-query-not-executing/191301 "2019-07-19T02:26:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Khirod\_Panda](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Khirod_Panda)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2019, 2:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sql-query-not-executing/191301/1 "2019-07-19T02:26:04Z")
Hello, i have index names as alpha-\* and when i try to run SQL query on the index it throws error
POST /\_xpack/sql?format=txt
{
"query": "SELECT \* FROM alpha-\* "
}
error 👎
"type": "parsing\_exception",
"reason": "line 1:20: **mismatched input '-' expecting** {, ',', 'ANALYZE', 'ANALYZED', 'AS', 'CATALOGS', 'COLUMNS', 'CURRENT\_DATE', 'CURRENT\_TIMESTAMP', 'DAY', 'DEBUG', 'EXECUTABLE', 'EXPLAIN', 'FIRST', 'FORMAT', 'FULL', 'FUNCTIONS', 'GRAPHVIZ', 'GROUP', 'HAVING', 'HOUR', 'INNER', 'INTERVAL', 'JOIN', 'LAST', 'LEFT', 'LIMIT', 'MAPPED', 'MINUTE', 'MONTH', 'NATURAL', 'OPTIMIZED', 'ORDER', 'PARSED', 'PHYSICAL', 'PLAN', 'RIGHT', 'RLIKE', 'QUERY', 'SCHEMAS', 'SECOND', 'SHOW', 'SYS', 'TABLES', 'TEXT', 'TYPE', 'TYPES', 'VERIFY', 'WHERE', 'YEAR', '{LIMIT', IDENTIFIER, DIGIT\_IDENTIFIER, QUOTED\_IDENTIFIER, BACKQUOTED\_IDENTIFIER}"
---
### Author:  [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2019, 6:36am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sql-query-not-executing/191301/2 "2019-07-19T06:36:17Z")
Try with
```
"query": "SELECT * FROM \"alpha-*\" "
```
---
### Author:  [@Khirod\_Panda](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Khirod_Panda)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2019, 12:28pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sql-query-not-executing/191301/3 "2019-07-19T12:28:01Z")
> [@dadoonet](#):
>
> SELECT \* FROM "alpha-\*"
Thanks... That worked like a charm 🙂
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### Author:  [@Khirod\_Panda](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Khirod_Panda)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2019, 12:29pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sql-query-not-executing/191301/4 "2019-07-19T12:29:29Z")
Just wanted to know for my understanding why do we escape those by " ? any reason ?
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### Author:  [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2019, 1:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sql-query-not-executing/191301/5 "2019-07-19T13:09:32Z")
See [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.2/sql-index-patterns.html#sql-index-patterns-multi](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.2/sql-index-patterns.html#sql-index-patterns-multi)
---
### Author:  [@Andrei\_Stefan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Andrei_Stefan)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2019, 7:35am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sql-query-not-executing/191301/6 "2019-07-22T07:35:32Z")
Also, [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.2/sql-lexical-structure.html#sql-syntax-single-vs-double-quotes](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.2/sql-lexical-structure.html#sql-syntax-single-vs-double-quotes).
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### Author:  [@Khirod\_Panda](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Khirod_Panda)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sql-query-not-executing/191301/7 "2019-07-22T15:29:28Z")
Thanks That Helped
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/sql-query-not-executing/191301/8 "2019-08-19T15:29:33Z")
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