How do I use constants in a load script?

[#1]

I have a load script where I use the same value in multiple places. It is a date in the format YYYYMM so 201408 in the example below.

LOAD text(City) as City,

     text(State) as State

FROM

(txt, codepage is 1252, embedded labels, delimiter is '\t');

What I want to do is to declare a variable called monthDate that is equal to 201408. Then I want to use that variable in place of 201408 throughout my load script. This way I only have to change the date in one place than in many. Is it possible to do this? Ideally it would something like this.

monthDate = 201408

LOAD text(City) as City,

     text(State) as State

FROM

(txt, codepage is 1252, embedded labels, delimiter is '\t');

[Gysbert_Wassenaar · Accepted solution]

SET monthDate = 201408;

LOAD text(City) as City,

     text(State) as State

FROM

(txt, codepage is 1252, embedded labels, delimiter is '\t');

[rwunderlich]

Create monthDate as a variable using SET. Then reference it in your script as $(monthDate).

-Rob

SET monthDate = 201408;

LOAD text(City) as City,

    text(State) as State

FROM

(txt, codepage is 1252, embedded labels, delimiter is '\t');

[#4]

Thanks! I knew there had to be a way, but was unsure of the syntax.