Question

Would it be possible to store a “link” to another record inside a record? For example:

table USERS
id    name    link
-------------------------------------------------------
1     user1   [link to record with id=4 in table info]

So, in PHP, I could do something like this:

// connect to the database etc....
$query          = "select * from users where id=1";
$result         = mysql_query($query);
$another_result = mysql_result($result, 0, 'link');

So that $another_result stores the result of another query, in the same raw format as if it was called using mysql_query().

Is this possible?

Answer 1

$query          = "select info.* from info 
                   inner join users on users.link = info.id 
                   where users.id=1";
$result         = mysql_query($query);

Using JOIN is a fundamental part of SQL, like using for loops in PHP.

Read A Visual Explanation of SQL Joins by fearless leader.