Actually in response to my previous comment, would the following achieve wwhat I want? ... and strcmp('$foot_budget', substring_index(substring_index(rates, ',', $selecteddate), ',', -1)) = -1 and strcmp('$head_budget', substring_index(substring_index(rates, ',', $selecteddate), ',', -1)) = 1 -- Regards, Owen Franssen Twisted Design mailto:twisteddesign@eircom.net -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php