[Resolved] Help with SELECT query please ...

[billibones]

Ok I need help with this query please. Below I have a query that checks two tables and returns the state listing for each contact in the contacts table, grouped by state so I remove duplicates.

<?php

$query = "SELECT * FROM zips,contacts where contacts.zID = zips.zID GROUP BY zips.zState";
$result = mysql_query($query);
while ($rows = mysql_fetch_object($result))
{
echo '<b>State:</b>&nbsp;' . $rows->zState . '<br>';
}

?>
[code]

Ok, I need to reverse this query ...  I need to list the remaining states that do not have a contact associated with them.  And I need to only have one state listing (ie. no duplicates).

Using != does not return the values correctly so I am unsure how to get the reverse of this query.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

[xblue]

This is from the manual, I think it may help:

If there is no matching record for the right table in the ON or USING part in a LEFT JOIN, a row with all columns set to NULL is used for the right table. You can use this fact to find records in a table that have no counterpart in another table:

mysql> SELECT table1.* FROM table1
-> LEFT JOIN table2 ON table1.id=table2.id
-> WHERE table2.id IS NULL;

[billibones]

Your the man ... worked like a champ ... Thank you ... Thank you.

I really appreciate it...

Here was the final query:

$query="SELECT zips.* FROM zips LEFT JOIN contacts ON zips.zID=contacts.zID WHERE contacts.zID IS NULL";
$result = mysql_query($query);
while ($rows = mysql_fetch_object($result))
{
Do Action
}