obtaining specific info from a database

[ridster]

hey i want to construct a list of items i need for a computer configurator like that at alienware.com

i have a products table that contains all the products i will have on my website however for the configurator i want to select only the items, accessories extras that i want to selected the computer.

i don't want to send out a SELECT query for each item...is there a way to send out one query that will fetch all the items i need?

I thought it would be good to have an array of product id's and the have a query which would grab the info i require based on these id's

<?php

$items = array (Z7100VP, WINXPHSP2, WINXPPSP2,....)
$query = "SELECT product_id, price FROM product WHERE product_id IN ($items)"

?>

ok i'm a total newbie to php and mysql so thats the direction i'm heading at the moment....can someone point me in the right one?

Thanks

[nemonoman]

You've got the right idea;
You'll need to put quotes around the alphanumeric elements in "items"

WHERE product_id IN ('Z1234', '234ABC','12345,)...etc

So you'll need to [man]implode[/man] your array