Re: looping through an array problem

Forgive me if this comes twice: my ISP had a service blackout for three hours and I don't know what went: If my last post read (and I see that it did) that I was defending myself as opposed to falling ALL OVER my sword, I apologize: allow me to be clear: No, you're all correct and M. Sokolewicz doubly so: I had unintentionally selected fields from the wrong table for no reason other than lack of sleep coupled with lack of experience and a desperation to try to understand The problem was that I was pulling data in a manner both useless and complex from a thoroughly unnecessary table (I could tell you all why but you'll all just laugh at me more) I am grateful for all the help everyone has offered up to now and hope I did not offend - I was trying in my last post to indicate that I was an idiot, and it appears I've come off as arrogant. I promise it was not my intent! [Then I wrote::] Ah. I just remembered one reason I had done it involving the art_id field: I have more publishers in the db than are currently associated with artworks. I don't want a publisher to appear unless there is at least one image associated with it. So I did this to avoid having people see a link to the Sneezy Acres Tribune only to arrive at the next page and see, "There are no images associated with this publisher." Jochem Maas wrote:

Jack Jackson wrote:

M. Sokolewicz wrote:

Jack Jackson wrote:

Thanks for all the replies. Jochem, thank you for this code, which will take me all night to understand (though I bet it works). I also note that SELECT DISTINCT worked here, too Also as many of you noticed before me, the art_id was in there as a fly in the ointment.

by that statement I ment the exact same thing Jochem ment in his 2nd part; I have NO idea why you're selecting *ANYTHING* from the arts table... it's *useless* if you don't need the data...

Er, yes, that was what I meant: I had unintentionally included that bit.Thank you for your help.

Er, Jack - your original query was: SELECT art.art_id,art.publisher_id,publisher.publisher_name, FROM art LEFT JOIN publisher ON publisher.publisher_id=art.publisher_id which is a selection on the art table... ( with a typo) if you did: SELECT art.publisher_id,publisher.publisher_name FROM art LEFT JOIN publisher ON publisher.publisher_id=art.publisher_id nothing would change. and if you did: SELECT publisher.publisher_id,publisher.publisher_name publisher i.e. not 'unintentionally' selecting from the arts table. then you would not have had a problem in the first place?! I think I'm missing something ;-)