Sum On Every Month

I have a sales table
date total
2004-1-3 123,000
2004-2-2 232,000
2004-4-1 142,000
...
I need a report has sum of total sale on every month even there is on sale record on that month(show as zero)
e.g.
date total
2004-1 123,000
2004-2 232,000
2004-3 0
2004-4 142,000
....
is this possible???
thanks

you need to do a LEFT OUTER JOIN from some table to your data table

the "some table" could be an integers table

see this article -- Selecting all months even if they're missing
(registration may be required, but it's free)