Hello, I am trying to craft a query that will allow me to retrieve truly unique result elements. Here's my setup: table_1 -------------------- link_field varchar(20) field1 varchar(20) field2 varchar(20) table_2 ---------------------- link_field varchar(20) field3 varchar(20) Here's what I've been trying to do (unsuccessfully): "SELECT DISTINCT t1.*,t2.field3 FROM table_1 AS t1, table_2 AS t2 WHERE t1.link_field = t2.link_field ORDER BY t2.field3" imagine these contents of the two tables: table_1 --------------- record 1: link_foo1 foo1 foo2 record 2: link_foo2 foo3 foo4 table_2 --------------- record 1: link_foo1 bar1 record 2: link_foo1 bar2 record 3: link_foo2 bar1 What I want is a query that will return only 1 entry for each "link_foo" encountered in table #2 but order the result based on the contents of "field3" from table #2 and also return the corresponding data from table #1. The query I'm running shows a number of records returned equal to the number of records in table #2... although they ARE ordered correctly. What am I doing wrong? If there's no way to do what I want I suppose I could keep a list of each item encountered and skip over the next element if it has already been encountered but that seems like a lot of extra unneccessary code. Thanks -Marc- #/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/# #Marc Swanson | \|||/ # #MSwanson Consulting | /o o\ # #Phone: (603)868-1721 |-ooo----O----ooo-# #Fax: (603)868-1730 | Solutions in: # #[EMAIL PROTECTED] | 'PHP 'Perl # # | 'SQL 'C++ # # | 'HTML 'Sh/Csh# # http://www.mswanson.com | 'Javascript # #/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/# --------------------------------------------------------------------- Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
