Simple - table 1 contains your actions: 
id   action
---------------
 1     ls
 2     cd
 3     file
 4     zonk

[download]
Table 2 contains your list of products: 
id   product
-----------------
 1     /usr/bin
 2     /home
 3     /usr/tmp

[download]
And finally Table 3 is a cross reference of the two, called product_actions: 
p_id   a_id
-------------
 2      3
 1      3
 2      4

[download]
so something like: 
SELECT actions.action, products.product
FROM   actions, products, product_actions
WHERE  actions.id = product_actions.a_id
AND    product.id = product_actions.p_id

[download]
Would produce: 
file /home
file /usr/bin
zonk /home  #don't try this one at home kids!

[download]
At least that's what I think that extremely had in mind. Your results will vary, and from what I hear you saying, it sounds to me like you are working with a very un- normalized database.

Hope this helps,
Jeff

In reply to (jeffa) RE: RE: RE: reversing a hash -- printing it by jeffa
in thread reversing a hash -- printing it by jptxs

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.