why is this code displaying all comments?

I've got the code displaying comments but it's displaying all comments not just ones that are equal, can't figure this out.

<?php
$sql = "SELECT * FROM contactnotes,contacts WHERE contactnotes.contacts_id = contacts.ID ORDER BY contactnotes.timestamp DESC" or die('Error: ' .mysql_error());

$result = mysql_query($sql) or die ('Error: ' .mysql_error());

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){

?>

<table width="950" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<td align="left" width="100%"><h5><strong><? echo $row['agentassigned']; ?> on <? echo date("F d Y @ h:i:s", strtotime($row['timestamp'])); ?> wrote:</strong></h5></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<br /><td align="left" width="100%"><? echo $row['notes']; ?></td>
</tr>
<开发者_C百科/table>
<hr/>
<br />

I'm assuming you are looking to show all notes for a contact, try rewriting your query as follows:

"SELECT * FROM contactnotes,contacts WHERE contactnotes.contacts_id = contacts.ID AND contacts.ID = " . mysql_real_escape_string($id) . " ORDER BY contactnotes.timestamp DESC"

FYI:

$sql = "SELECT * FROM ..... DESC" or die('Error: ' .mysql_error());

You're doing a string assignment, not a MySQL operation. Assignments cannot fail in PHP, so the or die() will NEVER be triggered, and it's not a MySQL operation, so even if the assignment did somehow miraculously fail, the error message would be completely wrong and utterly useless.