PHP/mySQL query syntax

Question

Can I just check I have some of this right? It's fairly
basic, but just want to check I'm setting about it the right way,
as I'm new to the coding. (have in the past used Access a lot).
Basically I have tables for companies and contacts - in a one
to many relationship, as any given company may have many contacts -
which as far as I can tell is how you should do this rather than
have a single contacts table? (normalisation?)
So if the tables are :
Companies :
CompanyID (INT, auto increment)
Company
Address
etc
Contacts :
ContactID (INT, auto increment)
FirstName
LastName
etc
CompanyContacts :
CompanyID (INT)
ContactID (INT)
what should the SQL be for the page to display a company's
details along with each contact ?
I thought it might be something fairly simple like :
SELECT *
FROM Companies, CompanyContacts, Contacts
WHERE Company.CompanyID=CompanyContacts.CompanyID
But the Access flavour query comes out as :
SELECT *
FROM ([Companies] INNER JOIN [CompanyContacts] ON
[Companies].CompanyID = [CompanyContacts].CompanyID) INNER JOIN
[Contacts] ON [CompanyContacts].ContactID = [Contacts].ContactID;
If someone could translate the Access flavour query into
PHP/mySQL flavour that I could use as a reference that would be a
great help.
Cheers,
Iain

Answer 1

Thanks David.
Thinking about it, do I even need the interlinking table -
can I get away with :
Companies
CompanyID (primary key)
Company
etc
Contacts
ContactID (primary key)
CompanyID (foreign key)
FirstName
LastName
etc
And have
SELECT *
FROM Companies, Contacts
WHERE Companies.CompanyID = Contacts.CompanyID
Which would keep it relatively straightforward adding in new
companies and new contacts using DWs insert record behaviour, ie
wouldn't have the complication of populating the CompanyContacts
table?
Also - I've ordered your book from Amazon this week - so once
I get this project completed the plan is to work through it and
firm up some of the stuff I've been doing.
Iain