Problems inserting timestamp and having message id number :(

HI everyone, Just got two annoying problem which I couldnt find the answers to at the site and message archives. Firstly I want to insert a timestamp into the database and get it back as [hours:min, date], but I firstly dont know what to put in my MYSQL query bit which takes input from the form. Using: $query = "INSERT into $usertable (id, timestamp, title, author, dept, category, keywords) values ('$title','$author','$dept','$category','$keywords')"; doesnt work :( I know this really piss easy for most of you, but how do I insert the timestamp in and get it out in the format I need? Second thing, I want to have a forum setup so that people can reply to articles posted (similar to slashdot). All messages posted on any article go into one table, and it displays different messages depending on article by using the article $id number in the URL. There is obviously one primary key ID number anyway. But what I would like to add is a $messageid column so that for any article, all messages have a unique "message number" too which starts from 1 everytime. How could this be added to the table for each article???? Thanks a lot for any help or advice! /sunny Sunny Hundal http://www.snooplife.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Calendar - Get organized for the holidays! http://calendar.yahoo.com/