So i'm creating a simple news system with php mysql.

I am storing the date of each news post as a date field in a mysql database.

I need to be able to query the DB and group the news posts by month and date and display archive links in the sidebar like this

Archive November 2008 December 2008 January 2008

etc.

any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

The word 'group' explains exactly what you need. This sort of thing should do the trick:

SELECT MONTHNAME(dateCoumn) AS month, YEAR (dateCoumn) As year

       FROM news

       GROUP BY 

      YEAR (dateCoumn),
      MONTHNAME(dateCoumn)

      ORDER BY 
      dateCoumn ASC

Yeah that looks like what I need. Thanks.

How do i then get the monthname and year echoed out on the page?

nevermind. I figured it out. Thanks for you help. Much appreciated.