1) No. You must add third column that unically describes a person (primary key). E.g. there will more than one john smith. 2) And my first answer is the answer on your first question: table - fammem personid famid memid 1 1 1 2 1 3 3 32 4 4 5 4 5 3 6 6 4 1 sql: insert into fammem( famid , memid) values (5, 1); insert into fammem( famid , memid) values (1, 1); insert into fammem( famid , memid) values (3, 3); ... the personid is autoincr. field. 3) You shouldn`t use INNER JOIN, you may use simple SELECT: select fammem.*, family.name, members.name from family , fammem, members where family.id = fammem.famid and fammem.memid=members.id 4) uffff.... "Neil" <neil@xxxxxxxxxxx> ÓÏÏÂÝÉÌ/ÓÏÏÂÝÉÌÁ × ÎÏ×ÏÓÔÑÈ ÓÌÅÄÕÀÝÅÅ: news:20040824103144.62587.qmail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > I am no database guru and I am also new to php/mysql > > I want to be able to store data where one of the fields could have multiple > values which are stored in another table > > eg. the first table is called family with a field called name which contains > family names > the second table is called members with a fiedl also called name which > contains first names > the third table is an intermediate table that only contains ids of the other > tables. > (the data is below) > > By using inner joins I can get a list of all the people in the database (or > other variants eg. all the people with first names of Mary) > > My first question is - is this the best way to do stuff like this? > My second question is - how do I insert new data? eg to insert Mary Stevens > (the first name Mary already exists) > > I hope this all makes some sense > > Thanks > > Neil > > > > table - family > id name > 1 jones > 2 smith > 3 mcdonald > 4 talbot > 5 jackson > > > table - members > id name > 1 john > 2 mary > 3 ted > 4 sally > 5 bob > 6 jane > > > table - fammem > famid memid > 1 1 > 1 3 > 2 4 > 5 4 > 3 6 > 4 1 > > > SELECT * FROM family inner join fammem on family.id = fammem.famid inner > join members on fammem.memid = members.id > id name famid memid id name > 1 jones 1 1 1 john > 1 jones 1 3 3 ted > 2 smith 2 4 4 sally > 3 mcdonald 3 6 6 jane > 4 talbot 4 1 1 john > 5 jackson 5 4 4 sally -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php