How to check whether SELECT EXISTS returns a value or not?

Question

I am trying to quickly determine if a user_ID is the owner of a \'goal\'. I believe my SQL query is good, but I\'m trying to find a nice way of checking the result!

Answer 1

what about this:

$query = "SELECT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM goals WHERE goal_ID='$obj_id' AND user_ID='$user_id')";

return  mysql_query($query) ? false : true;