The q{} is irrelevant. The important change was the "FAIL" to 'FAIL'. I could have written it as 

$stg = $dbh->prepare(
  'SELECT REFERENCE, REQUIREMENT FROM TestCasesOutput WHERE PassFail =
+ \'FAIL\''
);

[download]
or 
$stg = $dbh->prepare(
  "SELECT REFERENCE, REQUIREMENT FROM TestCasesOutput WHERE PassFail =
+ 'FAIL'"
);

[download]

The problem was that only single quotes should be used to denote string literals in SQL. "Some Name" may be either a string or the name of a column or other object. Which is it depends on the database and its settings, but the later meaning is much more likely.

I believe you got the misleading error message because Access tries to be helpfull and treats unknown column names as "query parameters". If you would run that query from within Access you'd get a popup dialog asking you to enter the value of "FAIL".

Jenda
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
   -- Rick Osborne

In reply to Re^5: SQL error by Jenda
in thread SQL error by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.