# Can't seem to get this right!

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/cant-seem-to-get-this-right/292672>\
**Category:** programming\
**Created:** [July 17, 2009, 9:53am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/cant-seem-to-get-this-right/292672 "2009-07-17T09:53:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wakey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ee7513/32.png) [@wakey](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/wakey)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2009, 9:53am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/cant-seem-to-get-this-right/292672/1 "2009-07-17T09:53:28Z")

</div>

Hi everyone,

I am a little stuck on this query and can’t quite work out how to do it. Basically, I need to output some results to an Excel file from my database using PHP - I’ve done the PHP bit, I just can’t get the MySQL to output the correct results.

I am getting data from three tables - Student, Choice and Unit.

The tables look something like -

Student

AdmissionNo----Firstname-----Surname  
00001------------Jack-----------Smith  
00002------------Jill-------------Smith

Unit

Unit\_ID---------Name  
00001-----------Maths  
00002-----------Science

## Choice

Choice\_ID------Unit\_ID--------AdmissionNo--------Preference  
00001-----------00001---------00002----------------1  
00002-----------00002---------00002----------------2  
00003-----------00001---------00001----------------2  
00004-----------00001---------00001----------------1

I want to achieve an output in my Excel file that looks something like -

Surname—|---Firstname—|---Preference 1—|---Preference 2  
Smith-----------Jack------------Maths---------------Science

Using this SQL statement:

```auto
SELECT Surname, Firstname AS 'First Name', Name AS 'Preference 1' FROM student LEFT JOIN Choice ON student.AdmissionNo = Choice.AdmissionNo LEFT JOIN Unit ON Choice.Unit_ID = Unit.Unit_ID WHERE Preference = '1'

```

I get :

Surname—|---Firstname—|---Preference 1  
Smith-----------Jack-------------Maths

But I can’t figure how to list the other preferences as rows. Any help is much appreciated!

Thank you.