Pull variables with spaces in between for SQL table using RODBC's sqlQuery

The error is not with the fieldname I believe, but with the varchar constant that you are looking for. You should be using single quotes, not double.

This:

a.Bus_Area_ID = b.Bus_Area_ID and b."GBU External Segment Description"= "Printing"

Should be this:

a.Bus_Area_ID = b.Bus_Area_ID and b.[GBU External Segment Description] = 'Printing'

Generally, String values in SQL are not wrapped in double quotes, but single quotes.

Also, in your first line:

p5 <-sqlQuery(con,'SELECT a.region,a.Country,a.Qtr_ID,Net_VAT as Variable_Type,"Printing" as [External_Segment]

Are you trying to output Printing as a constant result from this query? If so, and it is not a field name, then you should also wrap that in ' single quotes, not double. That is likely what is cauing the first error that you are seeing.

So that it becomes:

p5 <-sqlQuery(con,'SELECT a.region,a.Country,a.Qtr_ID,Net_VAT as Variable_Type,'Printing' as [External_Segment]

The previous comment on your question about wrapping fieldnames with [] is correct, you should use [] the square brackets to wrap field names with spaces in them.

This query should work:

p5 <-sqlQuery(con,'SELECT  a.region,a.Country,a.Qtr_ID,Net_VAT as Variable_Type,\'Printing\' as [External_Segment]
                          ,SUM(a.VR_Value) as Value
          from
          (SELECT  d.region,d.Country,dt.Qtr_ID
          ,sum([Actuals YTD]/1000000) as VR_Value
          FROM ZOOM_DATAMART.dbo.[New_BalSheet_Fact] a
          inner join [dbo].[Buss_Area_Dim_V] b
          on 
          a.Bus_Area_ID = b.Bus_Area_ID and b.[GBU External Segment Description]= \'Printing\'
          inner join [dbo].[BSR_Header_GA_Dim_V] c
          on
          a.BSR_HEADER_GA_KEY= c.BSR_HEADER_GA_KEY and c.[Group Account Identifier] IN (1291,2150,2151,2152,2153,2154)
          inner join [dbo].[Legal_Company_Dim_V] d
          on a.Legal_Cmp_Key = d.Legal_Cmp_Key
          inner  join dbo.Date_Dim dt
          on a.Date_key = dt.Date_key and dt.Max_month_Flag = 1
          group by d.region,
          dt.Qtr_ID
          ,d.Country
          ) a
          Group BY
          a.region
          ,a.Country
          ,a.Qtr_ID')

Hope this helps.

Overall, your main issue involves confusing and conflating identifiers and literals. As information, in ANSI-SQL (the formal, industry standard of the SQL language that most RDBMS's adhere to including SQL Server, Oracle, Postgres, etc.), single quotes and double quotes are used for different purposes.

Single quotes are used to enclose string literals within char, varchar, text data type columns such as 'Printing'. Your first error message actually points to Printing as the MSSQL engine attempted to search for a column name since you wrapped this value in double quotes.

Double quotes are used for identifiers including column names and table names such as c."Group Account Identifier". Your second error points to the use of qualifying a table alias, c, to a literal value since you wrapped this value in single quotes.

Below are few common uses of this type:

• Double quotes explicitly impose case sensitivity. Specifically, when you wrap column names in double quotes, the same characters in camel case, lower case, and upper case render different values and an error will raise if they do not align to the actual case used in table creation (i.e., tbl."ColumnName" <> tbl."COLUMNNAME").

• Double quotes help escape special characters (!@#$%^&*?) and spaces. Hence, you can use c."Group Account Identifier" to identify the column. However, some RDBMS's have their own escaping symbols for special characters and spaces which are not ANSI standards. For example, SQL Server can use square brackets [...]; MySQL can use backticks `...`; SQLite and MS Access can use both.

• Double quotes help escape reserved words of the current RDBMS which for you includes SQL Server's list. However, it is advised not to use such words, special characters, accents, or spaces in column names.

With that said, like any rule there are exceptions. Both types of quotes may be used with string literals for some databases that allow non-ANSI modes. However, this is not advised to do in practice. Unlike most programming languages such as R, Python, PHP, Perl, XSLT that can swap these two types of quotes for string values, SQL at its base core is not one of them.

Therefore, use either quote type accordingly:

'Printing' AS "External_Segment",
...
AND b."GBU External Segment Description" = 'Printing'
...
AND c."Group Account Identifier" IN (1291, 2150, 2151, 2152, 2153, 2154)

Or

'Printing' AS [External_Segment],
...
AND b.[GBU External Segment Description] = 'Printing'
...
AND c.[Group Account Identifier] IN (1291, 2150, 2151, 2152, 2153, 2154)