COUNT DISTINCT in VB and Access

You need to assign a column alias to the count:

select count(distinct PlayPlayer) as PlayerCount
  from Plays

Now you can use the PlayerCount column name in VB.

There's one other thing that might cause a problem. Microsoft Access, if that's what you're using, doesn't support COUNT DISTINCT. (At least, it didn't in Access 97. I don't have Access 2000 or 2003, so I can't test it.)

To get around this, just use a saved query, which is the equivalent of a view in Access:

select distinct PlayPlayer
  from Plays

Save the above query as DistinctPlayersQuery. Note that you aren't saving any data, just the SQL. Then your count query becomes:

select count(*) as PlayerCount
  from DistinctPlayersQuery

Since the players are already distinct in the saved query, you can just count them.

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