union without UNION

[IncaWarrior]

I want to get select the posts for a topic in my forum plus the first one so I figured I would use a UNION like this:
__________________________________

$sql = "SELECT u.username, u.user_id, u.user_posts, u.user_from, u.user_website, u.user_email, u.user_icq, u.user_aim, u.user_yim, u.user_regdate, u.user_msnm, u.user_viewemail, u.user_rank, u.user_sig, u.user_sig_bbcode_uid, u.user_avatar, u.user_avatar_type, u.user_allowavatar, u.user_allowsmile, p.*, pt.post_text, pt.post_subject, pt.bbcode_uid
FROM " . POSTS_TABLE . " p, " . USERS_TABLE . " u, " . POSTS_TEXT_TABLE . " pt
WHERE p.topic_id = $topic_id
$limit_posts_time
AND pt.post_id = p.post_id
AND u.user_id = p.poster_id
ORDER BY p.post_time $post_time_order
LIMIT 1
UNION
SELECT u.username, u.user_id, u.user_posts, u.user_from, u.user_website, u.user_email, u.user_icq, u.user_aim, u.user_yim, u.user_regdate, u.user_msnm, u.user_viewemail, u.user_rank, u.user_sig, u.user_sig_bbcode_uid, u.user_avatar, u.user_avatar_type, u.user_allowavatar, u.user_allowsmile, p.*, pt.post_text, pt.post_subject, pt.bbcode_uid
FROM " . POSTS_TABLE . " p, " . USERS_TABLE . " u, " . POSTS_TEXT_TABLE . " pt
WHERE p.topic_id = $topic_id
$limit_posts_time
AND pt.post_id = p.post_id
AND u.user_id = p.poster_id
ORDER BY p.post_time $post_time_order
LIMIT $start, ".$board_config['posts_per_page'];
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That would probably work perfectly except that the version of mySQL I use doesn't support UNION.

Is there a way to do this (without updating the version) without UNION or a way using some other method?

 

[Bastien]

break up the statements and combine the results in an array in php (or the scripting language of your choice)

Bastien

Cat, the other other white meat