variables / reading files

I'm stuck on a piece of code for a shopping cart. I'm on the final page where the buyer clicks BUY and several things happen. I want to loop through the table that stores the session info and extract details such as item, price, quantity, subtotal and assign all this info to one variable: $var = the output of a while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query)) statement Why I'm trying to do this is I'd like to store all the purchase details in one variable for inclusion in an email: $message = $var; // (from above) mail($address,$subject,$message); I'd also like to put the info in that same variable into a table that records actual sales data: $details = $var; insert into table ('details') values ('$details'); I know there must be a (probably very easy) way, but just can't crack it. At the moment I'm writing the stuff to a temporary file then reading it back again which isn't very elegant. Also, is there any easy way to simply open and read a text file and assign its contents to a variable? 'fpassthru','fread' and 'file' all seem to have limitations in this regard: fpassthru sends output to standard output and apparently won't store output in a variable (unless I did something wrong) fread needs a parameter for number of characters, file adds <P> tags Anyway, any suggestions greatly appreciated. Michael hall