I have a DB which has a table called "config". This table could possibly have a "config_cstm" table that is related by the id to the config table. I was wondering - is there a way to dynamically check for the existence of this table in one simple select statement? In other words, something like: "select * from config (IF EXISTS config_cstm THEN LEFT OUTER JOIN config_cstm ON config.id = config_cstm.id_c" I know how I would go about checking for the existence of an existing table in PHP. I was wanting to do this all in one MySQL statement though. Any suggestions? Thanks!