title: mysql syntax explanation
body: <p>I would like to know what the a.*, c.name, ... a.access etc means. In other words, what exactly am I referring to when I add a letter before the dot and the funciton of the dot.</p>
  
  <p>Here is an example of code where I found this occurrence: </p>
  
  <pre><code>$query = "SELECT a.*, c.name as categoryname,c.id as categoryid, ".
           "c.alias as categoryalias, c.params as categoryparams".
          " FROM #__k2_items as a".
          " LEFT JOIN #__k2_categories c ON c.id = a.catid";
  
          $query .= " WHERE a.published = 1"
          ." AND a.access &lt;= {$aid}"
          ." AND a.trash = 0"
          ." AND c.published = 1"
          ." AND c.access &lt;= {$aid}"
          ." AND c.trash = 0"
          ;
  </code></pre>