I have a dtml-method that calls a bunch of sql inserts to update tables in a relational database. The last thing I need to do is retrieve the auto-increment ID from one table and use an update command to put it into a joining table. I'm using MySQL 3.23.52 and it won't let me write the call as : UPDATE linksProjects SET linksProjects.categoryId = categories.categoryId (SELECT categories.categoryId FROM categories WHERE categories.catTitle = <dtml-sqlvar catTitle type=string>) Apparently it won't let me reference two tables in a nested query at all. So if I just make a call to a select statement: SELECT categories.categoryId FROM categories WHERE categories.catTitle = <dtml-sqlvar catTitle type=string> How do I pass the value retrieved back to a variable ... say 'ct' to use in The update statement? Kate