Question

I have an Access database table containing a row of dates in DateTime format. what I need to do is get all the distinct month names of the available dates into my asp.net page. For example if I have the following dates:

03-JAN-13 
04-JAN-13
09-FEB-13

the sql query would give me the following month names: JAN and FEB.
After searching the web i found that the following sql query is supposed to give me what I need:

OleDbCommand cmd5 = new OleDbCommand("SELECT distinct DATENAME( 'mm', date_time) as MonthName from temperature ", cn);

but when I run my asp.net website, I get the following exception:

Exception Details: System.Data.OleDb.OleDbException: Undefined function 'DATENAME' in expression.

PS: afterwards I will put these string values in a dropdownlist (no problem with that step).
So can anybody tell me how to do it?

Thanks!

Answer 1

For Access, the syntax should be:

SELECT DISTINCT MonthName(Month ( date_column )) as MonthName from temperature

Because the MonthName function expects an Integer and the Month function returns the Integer value of the Month.

See here and here for complete details