Get month and year from a datetime in SQL Server 2005

Question

I need the month+year from the datetime in SQL Server like \'Jan 2008\'. I\'m grouping the query by month, year. I\'ve searched and found functions like datepart, convert, e

Answer 1

Converting the date to the first of the month allows you to Group By and Order By a single attribute, and it's faster in my experience.

declare @mytable table(mydate datetime)
declare @date datetime
set @date = '19000101'
while @date < getdate() begin
    insert into @mytable values(@date)
    set @date = dateadd(day,1,@date)
end

select count(*) total_records from @mytable

select dateadd(month,datediff(month,0,mydate),0) first_of_the_month, count(*) cnt
from @mytable
group by dateadd(month,datediff(month,0,mydate),0)