MySQL Query w/ 2 tables to get the desired results

I am trying to pull in the relate开发者_如何转开发d postings based on the posting category. So where all category ids match the category id field.

Additional clarification:

I've been experimenting all morning and still no luck, and this is where I am at now. Note the $CatID in the ON clause is from a previous query above this one and the value is correct.

$sql = "
(SELECT 
    a.id,
    a.Price,
    a.City,
    a.Country,
    a.Title,
    a.Description,
    a.Category, // contains the corresponding ads_cate.id. 
    a.recdate,
    c.cateName,
    'item' AS type FROM ads_list AS a 
        LEFT OUTER JOIN ads_cate AS c 
            ON $CatID=a.Category 
            WHERE to_days(now())<=(to_days(recdate)+14) 
            ORDER BY RAND())
";

And as tested:

echo $CatID . $row['Category']; // Outputs 3 3 which is correct.  Category is 3 ads_cate id is also 3 for this record.

My results is pulling in duplicates and ALL ads regardless of Category.

If every ad has a category, and assuming your ads_cate table has an id field:

$sql = "
    SELECT 
        a.id,
        a.Price,
        a.City,
        a.Country,
        a.Title,
        a.Description,
        a.Category, // contains the corresponding ads_cate.id. 
        a.recdate,
        c.cateName,
        'item' AS type 
    FROM ads_list AS a 
    LEFT OUTER JOIN ads_cate AS c 
    ON c.id=a.Category 
    WHERE to_days(now())<=(to_days(recdate)+14) 
    AND a.Category = $CatID
    ORDER BY RAND()
";

Although I don't understand your question, when using join, you can use SELECT DISTINCT to stop the duplicates. Beyond that, I don't understand the question.

This is my working code. Had to modify some based on bfavaretto's suggestion, but it's working as expected now:

$sql = "
(SELECT
a.id,
a.Price,
a.City,
a.Country,
a.Title,
a.Description,
a.Category,
a.images,
a.recdate,
a.images,
a.image2,
a.image3,
a.image4,
a.imgWidth,
a.imgHeight,
a.ftype,
c.id,
c.cateName,
a.email,
'item' AS type FROM ads_list
AS a LEFT OUTER JOIN ads_cate
AS c ON c.id=a.Category WHERE to_days(now())<=(to_days(recdate)+14) AND a.Category =     $CatID ORDER BY RAND())";