access returns a '?'

Hi,

I am using the following query


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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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. the table is the results of the query.

thanks

 

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