Hi can anybody help
I am trying to retrieve data based on a specific code andonly before a specific date for instance AZ before 17 - mar - 2012, however I have 10 different codes in the same field and 10 different dates.
If I put the following in it returns results

[ Sqle = Sqle & " and b.shipcode = 'VE' and b.departuredate < '10-Mar-2012'" ]

However when I create this it does not return any values


[ Sqle = Sqle & " and b.shipcode = 'VE' and b.departuredate < '10-Mar-2012'"
Sqle = Sqle & " and b.shipcode = 'AZ' and b.departuredate < '17-Mar-2012'" ]


I know there is probably a very simple solution but I am just not seeing it

What kind of syntax is that? It is not SQL. Does the [...] denote an OR-condition? And what's the double-quote stuff and the & doing?

The square brackets are not part of the code, this is part of an sql statement created in visual basic

Sqle = Sqle & " and b.shipcode like 'VE' and b.departuredate < '10-Mar-2012'"
Sqle = Sqle & " Order by b.openedby, b.opendate"

The double quotes are automatically applied by VB, but i basically want all results that have VE if depart before 10 march as well as all that have az if depart before 17 march and so on

you dont' say what SQL engine you are using...
if thats JET / Access then your dates need to be encapsulated by # and use the US date format mm/dd/yyyy or the iso date format yyyy/mm/dd
eg
..any error messages?
.. im not used to seeing VB statements enclosed by [ & ].. is that valid VB syntax. if its to denote the sql in your posting then prefix with [ c o d e ] and suffix with [ / c o d e ]
..natch remove the spaces before use
just a though have you actually checked there is data that matches those criteria?

I'm sticking to SQL because this forum is about ISO/ANSI SQL and not some other syntax used by some products...

If you want to have all records "VE if depart before 10 march as well as all that have az if depart before 17 march", you'd have a query like this:
The way you wrote it above:
cannot work because you have two predicates "b.shipcode = 'VE' AND b.shipcode = 'AZ'" which are mutually exclusive - if one would evaluate to true for a row, the other would evaluate to false so that the ANDing of both predicates is always false.

Yes, except that the pound signs replace the single quotes:
The '&' is VBA's string concatenation operater -- the OP's building up a string of SQL. I think the open and close brackets are the OP's substitute for using '[code]' tags, which would be more appropriate.