Well, your query looked confusing to me, but break it up like this First : select Then, name your coloumns, seperate with commas, or use wildcard for all * Define from what table you need to select FROM database_table Add some select statements with WHERE WHERE and the statements itself 1=1 What did I just write now? Looking at your example I guess : 1. you need the coloumns : Rune, username 2. your table : RuneRunner 3. your select criteria : UserID=3 I would then write your SQL query as this : $sql = "SELECT Rune, username FROM RuneRunner WHERE UserID=3"; Then you could do your code, $pic = mysql_query($sql,$connection); $pic = mysql_fetch_array($pic); You would also want to add a database abstraction layer, as for debugging purposes this will make your life much easier. Your original code looks to correct if you rewrite it abit, like this : SELECT RuneRunner_1.Rune, RuneRunner_1.username FROM RuneRunner RuneRunner_1 WHERE (RuneRunner_1.User_ID=3); Not tested but it should work fine. On the other hand, the referencename after the table name should be a short one to make the statement much easier to read, somthing like : SELECT rr.Rune, rr.username FROM RuneRunner rr WHERE (rr.User_ID=3); Then again, since you only have one table in your statement there is no need for the reference name, and since your WHERE clause is a single statement there is no need for the paranthese either. So you are still back to : SELECT Rune, username FROM RuneRunner WHERE User_ID=3; -- -- Kim Steinhaug ---------------------------------------------------------------------- There are 10 types of people when it comes to binary numbers: those who understand them, and those who don't. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- www.steinhaug.com - www.easywebshop.no - www.webkitpro.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "Water_foul" <phpdbnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:20040623000943.72840.qmail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > why doesn't this work: > $pic=mysql_query('SELECT Rune, username FROM RuneRunner > RuneRunner_1 WHERE (User_ID = 3)',$connection); > $pic=mysql_fetch_array($pic); -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php