big problem with simple querying multiple tables

[da_marek]

hello!
first of all i wonder what is the SIMPLIEST way to search in 9 different tables and than display results?

and my problem is:
i have 9 tables and i want to search all of them and then display results on the page.
code for query looks like this:

$search = mysql_query("SELECT table1.*,table2.*,table3.* FROM table1,table2,table3 WHERE table1.name LIKE '%$search_string%' AND table2.name LIKE '%$search_string%' AND table3.name LIKE '%$search_string%'");

i put only 3 tables in query but i hope that if it works with 3 it will work with nine too...

and this is the example what happens when i search for string 'as':
sql founds 3 records: Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX, Panasonic KX-F L501 and Panasonic KX-F L752 but it is shown on page like this:
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic NETWORK SUPER G3 FAX
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L501
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752
Panasonic KX-F L752

i really dont know why is this happening? and that searching in multiple tables is so confusing so any help would be great!
thanks a lot!

[rtconner]

yeah, the way to are doing it now, it does an automatic left join on the tables. you'll have to look it uup to find out whata join is. anyways...

to do what you want, i promise the only right way to get what you want is to do nine different select statement, one for each table. there might ways to write the seach you want in one query, but it gets way, way , way too complicated. for sure its not worth the effort.