my $today = getMaxDate();

sub getMaxDate {

my $sqltoday;

my $SQLDT = qq(select max(convert(char(12), Modified_Date, 101)) from Metrics);

my $dbhdt=Sybase::DBlib->dblogin($user, $pw, $server);
  $dbhdt->dbcmd($SQLDT);
  $dbhdt->dbsqlexec;
  $dbhdt->dbresults;

  while (@data = $dbhdt->dbnextrow) {
        $sqltoday = $data[0];
        }

return $sqltoday;

}