thanks that did it... like I said this really wasn't important more or less just something it seems like I should know. even if using a reserved word is BAD design... <div>On 5/24/06, Basher584 <<a href="mailto:basher584@basher584.org">basher584@basher584.org</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I believe you want the back tick.. `keyword` <a href="http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/legal-names.html">http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/legal-names.html</a> <a href="http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/reserved-words.html"> http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/reserved-words.html</a> -Ben On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 02:29:03AM -0400, Caleb Cushing wrote: > well I tried... using "show" and [show] neither of those worked... syntax > error. I was thinking maybe that I could use some kind of character escape > to do it much like in say BASH if I really want to I can make echo '$SHELL' > print $SHELL instead of  /bin/bash this database I'm playing with isn't > important just a sample from a book... but it wasn't written for mysql. and > is Fairly old although the samples should be built around ANSI SQL-92 anyway > guess somedays I'm just not thinking. > _______________________________________________ > linux-user mailing list > <a href="mailto:linux-user@egr.msu.edu">linux-user@egr.msu.edu</a> > <a href="http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user"> http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user</a> </blockquote></div>