access returns a '?'

[jr]

Hi,

I am using the following query

[b]
SELECT Count(*) AS votes, show.showName, awards.Award
FROM (show INNER JOIN vote ON show.showID = vote.voteshow)
INNER JOIN awards ON vote.votenum = awards.awardkey
GROUP BY show.showName, awards.Award
ORDER BY awards.award, Count(*) DESC</BLOCKQUOTE>
which counts votes for award recepients (shows) and orders them by award and number of votes. until last night, this was working fine. now, when i run the query, show.showname returns a ?.
any suggestions?
thanks

edit: i just downloaded the database and ran the query in access on my computer. the field that was returning '?'s returns non-standard characters. the other queries that access the show.showname field have no trouble doing so.

Post Edited (jr) : 5/2/2006 5:54:14 PM GMT

[Aristotle]

It looks like the page that's displaying the results is not set to use the right encoding or character set.

Aristotle

DiscountASP.NET
www.DiscountASP.NET (http://www.DiscountASP.NET)

[jr]

it was working originally. then, suddenly, it stopped working. everything is in english (not sure what you mean by not using the right encoding or char-set.)

thanks

[Aristotle]

What is the data type of the show.showName column? And what is the page on your site where we can see the '?' characters?

If this column contains non-standard characters then you'll have to specify on the page what encoding was used to store these characters. Are you using ASP or ASP.NET?

Aristotle

DiscountASP.NET
www.DiscountASP.NET (http://www.DiscountASP.NET)

[jr]

its a text column, populated with standard characters (a-z,0-9)
i created a page that is using that query at www.wyur.org/rs.asp (http://www.wyur.org/rs.asp). the table is the results of the query.

thanks

[Aristotle]

Hmm, I don't see how it shouldn't work, unless maybe it's a memo datatype column. You might not be able to GROUP BY memo datatypes, and this could be the weird result if you do.

Aristotle

DiscountASP.NET
www.DiscountASP.NET (http://www.DiscountASP.NET)