diff --git a/WHATSNEW b/WHATSNEW
index 0d621a252..f02e95d93 100644
--- a/WHATSNEW
+++ b/WHATSNEW
@@ -65,6 +65,9 @@ Changes that could break older environments:
   file that somehow relied on content outside the firewall being unreachable:
   use the -noproxy command-line option to disable this new feature.
 
+* A bug in SQLExec would prevent the execution of trailing,
+  non-semicolon-delimited statements.  Bugzilla Report 37764.
+
 Fixed bugs:
 -----------
 
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/SQLExec.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/SQLExec.java
index b1da95b24..385ab6191 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/SQLExec.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/SQLExec.java
@@ -500,7 +500,7 @@ public class SQLExec extends JDBCTask {
             }
         }
         // Catch any statements not followed by ;
-        if (!sql.equals("")) {
+        if (sql.length() > 0) {
             execSQL(sql.toString(), out);
         }
     }