Optimizing Loops

Categories and Subcategories

[inveni0]

Okay, so I need to select a list of categories from mySql. It is arranged like this:

catid catname  catparent
1   first   0
2   second  0
3   firstsub 1
4   secondsub 2

The only way I know to do this is loop through every category, starting with the parent category, finding all of the children categories and building a sort of hierarchy from it. I know that it's common to need to do this sort of thing, so I was wondering if there were a better way--perhaps some way of optimizing the code to be nice and fast?

[inveni0]

Any ideas on this, or is my thinking probably as good a way as any?

[trillianjedi]

Have you read this:-

[dev.mysql.com...]

[inveni0]

No, I haven't! Thanks!