st: Re: How to cite a macro in ODBC's SQL select statement

["Joseph Coveney" <jcoveney@bigplanet.com>]

G. Dai wrote:

I have one problem about how to cite macro in ODBC.
For example, I try to read some variables yesterday's value into the
memory of Stata, what I did is

local todate=date(c(current_date),"DMY")
local ydate=`todate'-1
local yyear=year(`ydate')
local ymonth=month(`ydate')
local yday=day(`ydate')

odbc load, exec("SELECT BEGIN_DATE END_DATE VARIABLES  WHERE
BEGIN_DATE BETWEEN TO_DATE ('`ymonth'/`yday'/`yyear' 00', 'MM/DD/YYYY
HH24') AND TO_DATE  ('`ymonth'/`yday'/`yyear' 00', 'MM/DD/YYYY
HH24')")  dsn("SQL Database1")

However, this doesn't work since the SQL select statement ignors the
Stata macro.
What should I do?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I use local macros in -odbc exec()- all of the time without any problem, so your
problem is probably along the lines of Nick's guess.

One easy thing that you can do is to verify that -odbc- sees what you intend it
to.  At the point in your code where you've got the -odbc exec()- line insert a
-display- of its -exec()- argument, like below.  (It will be wrapped in the
e-mail processing, but you'll see what I mean.)

display in smcl as text "SELECT BEGIN_DATE END_DATE VARIABLES WHERE BEGIN_DATE
BETWEEN TO_DATE('`ymonth'/`yday'/`yyear' 00', 'MM/DD/YYYY HH24') AND
TO_DATE('`ymonth'/`yday'/`yyear' 00', 'MM/DD/YYYY HH24')"

In Stata's Results window, take a look at the arguments of the two TO_DATE()
function calls and verify that they're what you intend.

Joseph Coveney


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