query's inside of query's?

[Anon]

I'm sort of new at this stuff, and I was just wondering if it's possible and/or good practice to put query's inside of query's. For example:

$result = mysql_result(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM employees WHERE name=$name", $db),0,"name");

Or do you have to do it the long way and create another variable:

$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM employees WHERE name=$name", $db);

$result = mysql_query($query,0,"name");

And I know the second one is probably easier to read, but being more concerned about optimization, could it be better (and possible) to spare a variable and just put the two query's together like that?

Thanks,
Glen

[Anon]

The "cost" of CPU time in either of the two examples is minimal compared to the "cost" of CPU time for even the simlpest SQL query.

The real reason to seperate them out is if you are in need of programmatically building your queries. I.e. if you have a variable number of sections to your where clause, things like that.