One thing I've done in situations like this is just load your returned DB data into an array. Something like this would do: $dvdarr[$result['call_number']]['Title'] = $result['title']; $dvdarr[$result['call_number']]['Publisher'] = $result['publisher']; $dvdarr[$result['call_number']]['Comments'][] = $result['comment']; Put that in a loop of your results. Notice the "[]" on the comments. That'll collect all your comments under the umbrella of 'Comments'. Then when you go to do your output, you'd do something like this: forach ($dvdarr as $callnumber => $dvddata) { $title = $dvddata['Title']; $publisher = $dvddata['Publisher']; $comments = $dvddata['Comments']; foreach ($comments as $comment) { // do whatever } } There are other ways to handle this.. this might be one of the easier ones (if I'm understanding your problem correctly). -TG = = = Original message = = = Hello, all. I don't know if this is a php-mysql question or just a mysql, but here goes: I have a list of DVDs that my library loans out, and I'd like to allow people to add comments to each item. Since this list gets regenerated periodically (it's extracted from another system, the library catalog), there isn't a consistent ID in the dvd tables, so I'm using the call number (which will look like DVD 2324) as the key. Anyhow, I join the tables like this to get all the DVDs and all the comments associated with the DVDs: SELECT distinct dvds.title, dvds.publisher, dvds.publication_date, dvds.call_number, comment.id, comment.parent_id, comment.comment, comment.name FROM dvds LEFT JOIN comment ON dvds.call_number=comment.parent_id WHERE dvds.title LIKE 'A%' ORDER BY dvds.title With this, I'll get results like DVD 101 A.I. This movie rocked DVD 101 A.I. This Movie stunk DVD 102 Adaptation . . . DVD 103 After Hours . . . When I loop in PHP through the records, of course, I want just the one DVD with however many comments associated with it. Is it possible to do this (i.e., screen out DVD dupes) in MySQL, or do I have to do it in PHP? If this is a dumb question, my humblest apologies, and I'd be interested if there was a better way to handle this . . . . Andrew ___________________________________________________________ Sent by ePrompter, the premier email notification software. Free download at http://www.ePrompter.com. -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php