3-4 Table JOIN?

[Willis]

I'm working a custom built forum and would like to in one shot select the names of subject -> category -> forum -> and topic all at once?

For those who never looked at a webforum database .. my database setup - topic has subID of forum primary, forum has subID of category primary, and category has subID of subject primary.

So how may this look? Instead of running 4 queries back to back to back? I don't need all entries from all tables, just one feild each from the 3 other's and 2-3 from the topics table.

[jatar_k]

the 4 queries might actually be quicker, not sure, joining what could be the 4 biggest tables in the db could be somewhat nasty, though I guess most forum software is no stranger to nasty joins.

Are you changing this because it is too slow now?

have you had any success with any queries so far?