Whats the proper way to check if mysql_query() returned any results?

Question

I tried what seemed like the most intuitive approach

$query = \"SELECT * FROM members 
          WHERE username = \'$_CLEAN[username]\'
          AND password =          


        

Answer 1

well...

by definiton mysql_query:

mysql_query() returns a resource on success, or FALSE on error.

but what you need to understand is if this function returns a value different than FALSE the query has been ran without problems (correct syntax, connect still alive,etc.) but this doesnt mean you query is returning some row.

for example

<?php

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM a WHERE 1 = 0");

print_r($result); // => true

?>

so if you get FALSE you can use

mysql_errorno() and mysql_error() to know what happened..

following with this:

you can use mysql_fetch_array() to get row by row from a query

Answer 2

I used the following:

if ($result != 0 && mysql_num_rows($result)) {

If a query returns nothing it will be a boolean result and it's value will be 0.

So you check if it's a zero or not, and if not, we know there's something in there..

HOWEVER, sometimes it'll return a 1, even when there is nothing in there, so you THEN check if there are any rows and if there is a full row in there, you know for sure that a result has been returned.