when doing a sql query, I would like to remove all trailing spaces
from a column name. I know there is an "rtrim" command taht can do
this, but when I do a "select rtrim(column name) from table, it won't
work! When I set a declare statement, declare @name varchar and then
do "select rtrim@name=(column name) from table it doesn't work either.
I think I have to do a select column name from table, then convert
column name to string data, but I don't know how to do this.
I need this to print some columns from the table, but the column that
has the name in it needs to be shorten to character length of ht name
only!

Thanks...

RTrim should be the correct command and your syntax looks correct.
"select RTRIM(col name)".  
Some questions that might help:
Can you tell us what the datatype is for the column that you want to trim?
What RDBMS (ie MS SQL Server, Access, etc) are you using?
How are you checking that RTRIM is not working - Maybe your query tool is 
adding the extra spaces?

The datatype for the column name I am trying to rtrim is varchar(63).
I am running on a sybase server.

Thanks...

Hi,

As soon as I know you don't need rtrim for varchar fields since they
are already trimmed when selected. There might be another problem.

Defining the datatype as varchar(63), simply allows for names up to 63
characters long. If the name is less 63 characters it is padded with
spaces.
When I run an sql program and pipe the output to a file the name field
leaves a gap between it and the next field I am selecting as I have
very few, if any, names the are 63 characters long.

I believe the problem is coming from your query utility.  Either ISQL
or whatever you are using is trying to create an output file with a
fixed length format.  When you generate an output file, you need to be
able to tell one one field ends and the next one begins.  There are
two ways to do this.  The first is to make every record (line) use the
same number of characters.  (spaces are added to the end of fields
that are to short) or to use a delimiter between fields.  Some
programs put strings into double quotes, or use the "|".  If your
output file does not have some sort of way of denoting the start and
stop location of the string, then this is almost definitly your
problem.  If you are using ISQL I would recomend looking at isql -? 
(or it might be just isql ?) for help about field delimiters.

I am using the command line in a DOS cmd prompt (able to connect to DB
through a sybase client insatlled on my desktop) "isql -U(username)
-P(password) -i(sql program name) >>(output file name); this requires
no output formating provisions. Likewise the code to extract the
fields I need is: select default_name, obj_ip_addr1, obj_ip_addr2,
obj_ip_addr3, obj_ip_addr4 from column_name where obj_ip_addr1=xxx and
obj_ip_addr2=yyy and obj_ip_addr3=zzz and temp_id<>32 and
alloc_type_cd=9
go
This code extracts the column name and the column data. The ability to
exclude the space padding would, from everything I can see, have to
occur at the select statement as there is not any cerebral code going
on!