Need some MySQL help

[igowerf]

I installed Invision Board on my website and I've been playing around with using the forum post news updates for my site. Instead of using a pre-made modification or hack, I want to try to write my own code.

Information regarding posts are basically stored in two tables: ibf_topics and ibf_posts. ibf_topics has the thread titles and ibf_posts has the content of the threads.

Right now, I have this:

$MaxPosts = 5;
$query = "select * from ibf_posts where forum_id=6 and new_topic = 1 order by post_date desc limit 0, $MaxPosts";
$result = mysql_query("$query") or
die (mysql_error());

while ( $row = mysql_fetch_array($result) )
{ ..... }

From the results, I also get the thread id which I can use to identify the corresponding thread title for the post. How should I go about getting information from both tables? Should I repeatedly query ibf_topics from inside the while loop? Can I query two tables at once and have MySQL return all the information in one array? Thanks.

 

[kt]

If you need to get information from both tables, you need to join them first. In your case, I would gather you will be joining the tables based on the thread ID so all the rows containing the posts for the particular thread are selected.

 

[igowerf]

Could you explain what you mean by "joining" the tables? Is that done through code or MySQL admin? Thanks.

 

[kt]

It's done thru your SQL statement. For example,

"SELECT * FROM ibf_topics JOIN ibf_posts ON ibf_topics.topicID=ibf_posts.topicID WHERE ibf_topics.topicID=1";

will return all posts with the topicID=1 and all relevant information (like topic title) are selected.

 

[igowerf]

Thanks! That's exactly what I'm looking for!