Question

I read an article and its comments from mysql database with two separate queries as

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM articles WHERE article_id='$id'");
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$title=$row['title'];
........

AND

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM comments WHERE article_id='$id'");
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
$comment_title=$row['title'];
.........
}

Is the best way to read this set of data from database? OR
Is it possible to catch the data through one query or one transaction?

NOTE: My issue is that first query for article is only for one row; but the second one needs a loop to process (and display in html) several comments.

Answer 1

$result = mysql_query("SELECT articles.title as article_title, comments.title as comment_title FROM articles LEFT JOIN comments ON articles.article_id = comments.article_id WHERE articles.article_id = '$id'");
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$article_title=$row['article_title'];
$comment_title=$row['comment_title '];