> select itemname from deals d, items i, deal_items di where > d.dealid=di.dealid and i.itemid = di.itemid and dealname="meal 1"; Would I be correct in thinking that the above is in effect the same as: select itemname from deals, items, deal_items where deals.dealid=deal_items.dealid and items.itemid = deal_items.itemid and dealname="meal 1";? I haven't seen the use of "deals d", I'm guessing this basically means "the table called deals but from now on I shall call it d" Does this offer are benefits over my version above? I currently use this rather long winded query because I find it helps me to work out what I am using. I suppose x years down the line when I'm better at constructing my queries, I would use your shorter version. The problem I am having is going from the kind of select query you mentioned to then using the results to go into a kind of order_history table. Using your example of the query: select itemname from deals d, items i, deal_items di where d.dealid=di.dealid and i.itemid = di.itemid and dealname="meal 1" I think I'm going to get: x----------x | itemname | | burger 1 | | chips | | drink | x----------x What I want to do is then take this data and insert it into an order_history kind of table containing other fields, so ultimately I can establish that customer x on 01/01/2001 at 12:00 ordered meal 1 which consists of (burger 1, chips, drink), part of the purpose being so I can individual items that can be ordered as part of a group as well as individual items. The whole customer x part is stored elsewhere and I am intending to tie the order information with something like: x---------------------------------------------x | order_id | customer_id | timestamp | | 1 | 32 |2006-11-30 18:01:07 | | 2 | 13 |2006-11-30 19:01:07 | | 3 | 46 |2006-11-30 20:01:07 | x---------------------------------------------x x----------------------------------------x | order_history_id | order_id | itemname | | 1 | 3 | burger 1 | | 2 | 3 | chips | | 3 | 3 | drink | x----------------------------------------x When I get the results from your query, in order to get the above table, would i be best to do something foreach ($array as $value) { INSERT blah, blah INTO blah blah, WHERE blah = $value } Note, the above is only illustrative and not meant to be my attempt at a working foreach statement. Thanks for the help so far Danny -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php