Database querys

[Vitamin]

I'm kind of new to database's and how they should work. I have a decent understanding, but I'm working on changing my database from 1 giant table to 3 or 4 different tables.  Here is the problem that I have.  I have a field in the main table called maps and it used to just hold the map name, but now I want to have a map table and just place the ID of that map in the main table.

 

But now how is the best way to query this table.  For example when I request the page it will send me the last 10 results of the main table, but then I want to display the map name on this page, which then I would need to get the ID from the main table and then query the map table.

 

Is that the correct way of doing this?  The reason I ask is because every time that page is called it will have to do 11 querrys instead of just the 1 I was doing before.

 

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {
//other code
$sql2 = mysql_query("SELECT mapname FROM maps WHERE id = '${row['map']}'");
        while ($row2 = mysql_fetch_array($sql2)) {
            echo $row2['mapname'];
        }


}

 

While it used to just be

 

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {
//other code
echo $row['map'];
}

 

Guess I'm just looking for input if this is the correct way of doing it.

[trq]

There is a tutorial on our main site that covers UNIONS & JOINS, you should read it.

[Vitamin]

Ok, thanks!

 

I'll take a look at it.

I figured it was more complex then just a right and wrong answer.