[Gretl-users] GRETL string concatenation for use in SQL statement

I am very new to GRETL so all help is greatly appreciated. Previously I have asked about making an ODBC connection to MS Access to bring in my own data. With the help of users in this community I have been successful in that end ever. Below is the code that I used: nulldata 250 setobs 12 1990:1 open dsn=FCST_INPUTS --odbc string sqlstr="SELECT Emplopy FROM Data_Table_to_GRETL WHERE census_division="East North Central" data Employ @sqlstr --odbc setinfo MWh -n "in MWh" Now I have a simple string concatenation question to be used in a SQL statement. I need to bring in two (2) data series from the same MS Access table named Data_Table_to_GRETL. The two series are: (1) Employ; and (2) Pop Both of data series need to be from the same census_division (in the Acess database I have data by year month for each of the 9 US census divisions). In this example the census division is "East North Central". I though that I could define a string named census_divicsion early in the code and then concatenate the sqlstr for each "ODBC read" as follows: string census_division="East North Central" nulldata 250 setobs 12 1990:1 # bring in Employment data open dsn=FCST_INPUTS --odbc string sqlstr="SELECT Employ FROM Data_Table_to_GRETL WHERE census_division=" ~ census_division data Employ @sqlstr --odbc # bring in Population data open dsn=FCST_INPUTS -odbc string sqlstr2="SELECT Pop FROM Data_Table_to_GRETL WHERE census_division="~ census_division data Pop sqlstr2 --odbc However, for some reason even thought the string appears to be correct, it errors out: Error executing script: halting Any assistance providing the correct logic for concatenating the sqlstr that would make it able to be read in SQL would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Mike