QUERY syntax using cell reference

Solution 1:

Copied from Web Applications:

=QUERY(Responses!B1:I, "Select B where G contains '"&$B1&"'")

Solution 2:

I only have a workaround here. In this special case, I would use the FILTER function instead of QUERY:

=FILTER(Responses!B:B,Responses!G:G=B1)

Assuming that your data is on the "Responses" sheet, but your condition (cell reference) is in the actual sheet's B1 cell.

Hope it helps.

UPDATE:

After some search for the original question: The problem with your formula is definitely the second & sign which assumes that you would like to concatenate something more to your WHERE statement. Try to remove it. If it still doesn't work, then try this:

=QUERY(Responses!B1:I, "Select B where G matches '^.\*($" & B1 & ").\*$'") - I have not tried it, but it helped in another post: Query with range of values for WHERE clause?