Ross, > If someone can give me a good reason why this is so, it will stop it > annoying me so much. >From the MySQL manual for version 4.0.16: It is not allowed to use a column alias in a WHERE clause, because the column value may not yet be determined when the WHERE clause is executed. See section A.5.4 Problems with alias. I didn't check section A.5.4, but it probably gives a more detailed explanation. dave
