Is this possible?

Hi Thanks for the help on previous questions, I now have an in principle type question. I have a MySQL database - "items" in one table and "descriptions" in another with a common key: item_ref It is used to create a sort of categorised directory of the items. (http://www.torbytes.co.uk) each table has a status field the "items" have a default description and the "descriptions" have a level classification. up to now been working through all the items and printing out the descriptions at each level printing the default if I don't have a matching description, but I now need to do the following: for a particular level print only the items (and their matching description) where there is a matching description. (I hope you see what I mean) since the items are categorised and I don't want any dead ends in my tree structure I have to know if there's a description before I start working through the items. I thought that this might be the way to do it: select all the item-ref values from the description table. step through this select array selecting the required fields from the item table where item_ref=item_ref and adding them to another array. then step through that array building up the tree structure The trouble with it as I see it is: it's a lot of select calls to the database (one for every description found) and I'm not sure how to add the fields found in the item table to a new array. Am I going at this the wrong way? Any help, clues or abuse accepted. Thanks Tony -- NEO organizes my Outlook - check it out: http://www.caelo.com/a/rl.php3?i=3NTVV