Question

Is there any way I can add a column to a table but I want the heading to be a date, and every new column added will have a column heading for the next day hence the

SET @date1 = @date1 + 1

What I want the table to look like is, where the date on top is a new column for each day the script loops:

StoreID StoreName     02/01/12    03/01/12    04/01/12
1234  Coles1         7512       8574        
1235  Coles2         7210       8441
1236  Coles3         4845       5448

When I run the script I get the following error messages:

Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Line 1
Line 1: Incorrect syntax near ‘@Column’.
Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Line 1
Line 1: Incorrect syntax near ‘@Column’.

Here is my script:

DECLARE @date datetime
DECLARE @date1 datetime
DECLARE @date2 datetime
DECLARE @Column varchar(8)
SET @date = '02 Jan 2012'
SET @date1 = '02 Jan 2012'
SET @date2 = '08 Jan 2012'
SET @Column = CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), @date1, 3)

IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sysobjects WHERE xtype = 'U' AND name = '#vl_temp_trans') 
BEGIN
   CREATE TABLE #vl_temp_trans
      (StoreID INT,
       StoreName VARCHAR(100),
       @Column MONEY)                  ----> column name to be date "@Column)
END

WHILE (@date1 <= @date2)
BEGIN
   SET @Column =  CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), @date1, 3)

   ALTER table #vl_temp_trans
   ADD @Column MONEY     ----> column name to be date "@Column" 

   Insert into #vl_temp_trans (storeID, storeName, @Column)
      select storeId, storeName, TotalDailyTransactions
      from daily_trans t1 (nolock) 
      full outer join outlets t2 (nolock) on t1.StoreID = t2.StoreID 
      where DailyEnd = @date1 + 1

   SET @date1 = @date1 + 1
END 

Answer 1

I think the problem is that you can’t use a variable to define a column name.

I used some of your code to test with. This first part executed fine.

DECLARE @date1 datetime
DECLARE @Column varchar(8)
SET @date1 = '02 Jan 2012'
SET @Column = CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), @date1, 3)
select @Column 

But when I added the CREATE TABLE statement and executed all of it at once, then I got the same error you did.

CREATE TABLE #vl_temp_trans
(StoreID INT,
StoreName VARCHAR(100),
@Column MONEY)                  ----> column name to be date "@Column)

To do this you will need to build up the CREATE TABLE and ALTER TABLE statements as a string and then execute those using EXECUTE or sp_executesql. A search for “dynamic sql” will also give you some article that describe this too.