You must use &, but since & will stop the macro expansion at thefirst point, you must also use a variable

lcRawData = addbs(fileloc) + "surveys/RawData2005"
rawdata = 'RawData2005'
lcPermID = '20011'
lcJoincondition = 'Companyinfo.company = RawData2005.company'
lcON=lcRawData + '.company'

SELECT Companyinfo.*, (lcRawData + '.*');
 FROM ;
     COMPANYINFO ;
    INNER JOIN (lcRAWDATA) ;
   on Companyinfo.company = &lcOndata ;
 WHERE  Companyinfo.permid = ( "20011" )

>The following code sequence will work fine
>

>lcRawData = addbs(fileloc) + "surveys/RawData2005"
>rawdata = 'RawData2005'
>lcPermID = '20011'
>lcJoincondition = 'Companyinfo.company = RawData2005.company'
>
>SELECT Companyinfo.*, (lcRawData + '.*');
> FROM ;
>     COMPANYINFO ;
>    INNER JOIN (lcRAWDATA) ;
>   on Companyinfo.company = RawData2005.company ;
> WHERE  Companyinfo.permid = ( "20011" )
>

>
>but this one will not
>
>

>lcRawData = addbs(fileloc) + "surveys/RawData2005"
>rawdata = 'RawData2005'
>lcPermID = '20011'
>lcJoincondition = 'Companyinfo.company = RawData2005.company'
>
>SELECT Companyinfo.*, (lcRawData + '.*');
> FROM ;
>     COMPANYINFO ;
>    INNER JOIN (lcRAWDATA) ;
>   on Companyinfo.company = (lcRawData + '.company') ;
> WHERE  Companyinfo.permid = ( "20011" )
>

>
>The construct fails with the indirect pointer in the 'ON' statement. I've tried every combination of (), "", and & that I can think of but can't seem to make it work. The query will run without error but it doesn't find any records. Any help will be greatly appreciated.