Select from a different table based upon the name in a field?

[Andrew Phillipo]

I am designing a CMS and I want it to be able to allocate certain structures anywhere within the design.

So for example I might be selecting Adverts, FAQs, Special Offers, Polls, News, or the Search Box or Login Box that can be contained within a particular column (by that I mean page column), in any order.

As a minimum I need to express what will be in each column at each time, extract that list from the database and query based upon that - so I build an array that has something like arr[0] = {<elementtype>,<elementid>}. Where <elementtype> is the type of element (referencing the appropriate entity) and elementid is an id for that element within its table. There would also be an order column. My worry is that it could be very inefficient.

If its possible to select on the fly the information I need that would be great.

If anyone has anything to say on this I would REALLY like to hear about it - even if its just the words 'stupid idea'...

How would you do this?

Thanks Everyone.