I'm programmatically creating a spreadsheet using VB.NET. The code
gets the data from a sharepoint document library. right now i'm using
a web query:

With sheet.QueryTables.Add(Connection:= _
"URL;https://www.xxx.com/sites/xxx/xxxx/xxx/AllItems.aspx" _
, Destination:=sheet.Range("a1"))

this works, but i need to insert some SQL into the query to limit the
number of records. How would i figure out the syntax? all the
examples i can find are for SQL Server, not a SharePoint library.

would i be better off using a SharePoint Web Service?

thanks in advance!