I tend to do this robert, while looking at your example i thought to myself since i am trying to mimick a shell command why not run one. Result: <? $db = 'db'; $host = 'host'; $user = 'user'; $pass = 'pass'; $query = "select * from $db.my_table"; $ddvery = shell_exec("mysql -u$user -p$pass --html --execute=$query"); echo "<pre>$ddvery</pre>"; ?> Not are the results safe but the unlimited possibilites are amazing. Thanks so much for the kick starter admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > Would you mind giving me an example of this that i can stick right into a blank php file and run. > > I get what you are saying but i cant seem to make that even echo out the data. php 5.2 mysql 5.1.3 Apache 2.2 <?php $db = 'db'; $host = 'host'; $user = 'user'; $pass = 'pass'; $query = "select * from my_table"; $db = escapeShellArg( $db ); $host = escapeShellArg( $host ); $user = escapeShellArg( $user ); $pass = escapeShellArg( $pass ); $query = escapeShellArg( $query ); $command = "echo $query | mysql --html -h$host -u$user -p$pass $db"; echo 'Command: '.$command."\n"; $html = `$command`; echo $html."\n"; ?> Cheers, Rob. -- http://www.interjinn.com Application and Templating Framework for PHP -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php