mySQL returning multiple rows from other tables

[nry]

I am fairly clued up with mySQL and can do joins, sub queries at a basic level but I have never had to return data in such a fashion before.

What I need to return on a basic level (re-nammed to a more common use as I don't have a DB structure to post online) is return all users with all their posted blog articles in one query.

I figure the most logical way to do this would be to return all users in order by their ID with a join on the blog so I would get an array back like follows:

USERID, NAME, BLOGTITLE, BLOGCONTENT
1, Bob, some crazy title, this is how not to write SQL
1, Bob, my first post, oh hello
2, Jack, hello, hi hardforum
2, Jack, example, bored now

Guess the query would be along the lines of
SELECT * FROM users
LEFT JOIN articles
ON users.userid = articles.userid
ORDERBY users.userid

So I am returning identical data, eg USERID, NAME multiple times. I can then group these in PHP and create an associative based on users with all their articles as a variable in that array, say ARTICLES

Is this the correct way of doing it?
Is a left join the correct one to use?
Are there any alternatives?

Sorry if I haven't explained this very well, been a long week!

 

[PTNL]

Is this the correct way of doing it?
Is a left join the correct one to use?
Are there any alternatives?

A LEFT JOIN would be appropriate if you were deleting the user row on the table (versus updating an "IsDeleted" column and filtering them out in a query). So if an article record cannot exist without a matching user record, then do an INNER JOIN instead.

Depending on your display needs, you may want to extend the ORDER BY statement to also factor the date/time that the article was created:

ORDER BY users.userid ASC, article.createdon DESC