parsing variables inside a variable?

Hi, I have a query regarding variable parsing. I have some text in a MySQL database in which I have included some variable names. Eg (but w/o quotes): "thankyou $name for registering on our web site". I query and use mysql_fetch_array to get the data into an associative array. I then build a string and output it like this: echo "blah blah ".$row["thecolumn"]." blah blah"; However, the output is simply: "blah blah thankyou $name for registering on our web site blah blah" - i.e. $name does not get parsed. I have tried wrapping $name with curly brackets in the database but that doesn't help and I have also tried using both addslashes and removeslashes on $row["thecolumn"] and I have also tried this: echo "blah blah $row['thecolumn'] blah blah" - again both with and without curly brackets. Nothing seems to work. Is what I am trying to do possible? Thanks in advance, James Holt -- -------------------------------------------------------- www.jholt.co.uk : affordable business website solutions www.htpshareware.com : software for the disorganized --------------------------------------------------------