Queries :: Use Of String Expression As Field Definition And ARGUMENT In IIF Statement

I am developing a calender to display HOTEL room occupancy (past,present) and combine with future "outlook" dates and 1/0 values from active registrations that go beyond the present date.

I am working with MS ACCESS 2007. My problem is ONE SPECIFIC QUERY AND IIF STATEMENT. I want to concatenate some text (using &) along with numbers converted to text (using the CSTr function). I am using iif function and I want to use the full text string as a variable argument to be executed in the iif function. The result of the &concatenate is a text field like [p1] or [p2] or [p#] with numbers 1-31.

But, I do not want the final result as the argument. I want the query and iif to use the string expression written into the argument as the variable argument that can be calculated based on OTHER numbers that change everyday in the daily run of the calender.

The field in the statement [calc number] is a date conversion factor that changes everyday.

I want the iif statement to execute using the string as a variable argument. I am writing only within the QUERY to define the query object. I am not writing into any SQL module or code. My field definition and iif statement is below (calc number changes everyday)

CalDate18: iif(18 greater date();"[p" & [calc number] & "]";0

I do not have greater-than key on this international keyboard !

When I use this in an update query, I get format conversion error. When I use the same definition in MAKE-TABLE query, it gives the resolved value "[p1]" for the value of [CalDate18] ......... that is not what I want.

I want the string to be taken literally and executed. Seems there may be a special character to precede the argument or WRAP the argument such as done in Excel. Example # "[p" & [calc number] & "]" #