monthname - script and chart function

This function returns a display value showing the month (formatted according to the MonthNames script variable) and year with an underlying numeric value corresponding to a timestamp of the first millisecond of the first day of the month.

Syntax:  

MonthName(date[, period_no])

Return data type: dual

Arguments:  

Examples and results:  

These examples use the date format DD/MM/YYYY. The date format is specified in the SET DateFormat statement at the top of your load script. Change the format in the examples to suit your requirements.

Example 1:  

monthname('19/10/2013')

Returns Oct 2013.
Because in this and the other examples, the SET Monthnames statement is set to Jan;Feb;Mar, and so on.

Example 2:  

monthname('19/10/2013', -1)

Returns Sep 2013.

Example 3:  

Add the example script to your document and run it. Then add, at least, the fields listed in the results column to a sheet in your document to see the result.

In this example, for each invoice date in the table, the month name is created from the month name shifted four months from base_date, and from the year.

TempTable:

LOAD RecNo() as InvID, * Inline [

InvDate

28/03/2012

10/12/2012

5/2/2013

31/3/2013

19/5/2013

15/9/2013

11/12/2013

2/3/2014

14/5/2014

13/6/2014

7/7/2014

4/8/2014

];

 

InvoiceData:

LOAD *,

MonthName(InvDate, 4) AS MthName

Resident TempTable;

Drop table TempTable;

The resulting table contains the original dates and a column with the return value of the monthname() function.