st: ODBC plus Excel column labels with a # sign

["Steichen, Thomas J." <SteichT@rjrt.com>]

Listers,

I'm trying to load data into Stata from an Excel spreadsheet via ODBC.
I encounter a problem when some Excel columns are labeled with a pound 
sign # as part of the column label.  Stata kindly converts such to a 
default name:

    . odbc load, dsn("Temp PPXREF") table("ppxref$") lowercase clear
    subj# invalid name
     - converted subj# to var3
    appearance# invalid name
     - converted appearance# to var4

Here, subj# is renamed var3 and appearance# is renamed var4.

I'd rather, though, handle this as part of the load command so I tried to
use the variable renaming feature of load. This yields an error:

    . odbc load subjnum=subj# appearance=appearance#, ///
      dsn("Temp PPXREF") table("ppxref$") lowercase clear
    variable subj not found
     r(683);

The manual makes no mention of this issue so I tried every combination of 
quotes and escape characters that I could think of, but to no avail.

Does anyone know a solution for this as part of the load command?  

My current recourse is to use Stata's -rename- command after the load completes.

Tom

Thomas J. Steichen
steicht@rjrt.com
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