single row select in 4gl

How do I SELECT a single row using a user supplied search criterion into a host variable in 4gl? It seems that I need to PREPARE the select statement (because of the variable part) and I thought I could use EXECUTE .. INTO .. to fetch the result. But the compiler disagrees :-( DATABASE mydbase main define stmnt char(100) define crit char(30) define this like tbl.name let crit = "rowid=1" -- so the result will be unique let stmnt = "select name from tbl where ", crit prepare p from stmnt execute p into this |_____________^ | | A grammatical error has been found on line 12, character 15. | The construct is not understandable in its context. | See error number -4373. I would appreciate any help! Andras ps. I can do this with a cursor, but that seems to be an overkill when I know I'll get at most one row.