cameraman - 10:04 pm on Jul 19, 2008 (gmt 0)

Looks like from the original post that the only intent is to grab category names to populate a select, so a join isn't needed.

I think it can be done, but I'd probably resort to using a method similar to yours (I'd do a 'when the name changes' sort of deal instead of tracking the row counts) to display both category and product data. Although, if I were in a feisty mood, I might just work on that join for a bit! ;)