Finding out if a name already exists in a SQL db

[Anon]

I'm working on an image gallery system, and I'm starting to work on error checking. One thing I want to do is look through the filenames (stored in the column "filename") and see if the user is trying to upload an existing image.

So basically if 8-06-landscape.jpg is equal to $userfile_name (brought in from a form) it will return an error, and if not it will continue with the file upload.

I am at a complete loss for how to do this.. I'm sure it's simple, but I can't seem to think of an easy way to do it.

Any ideas/suggestions welcome!

Thanks,

-Beth

[Anon]

Error checking- always my most neglected part of programming! This code should give you the basics for what you need to do:

$file_query=mysql_query("SELECT filename FROM tablename WHERE filename='$userfile_name'");

if(mysql_num_rows($file_query)) {

indicates the name was found; place appropriate error code here

}
else {

the name was not found; place appropriate upload code here

}

[Anon]

I would start your function with an if statement with a boolean that it will procees the input if the file does not exist. I am not completely sure of the syntax, I'm quite new to php so I will do my best.

$db_query = "SELECT * FROM filenames";

while($myfilenames = mysql_fetch_row($db_query)
{

If($fileExists = 1)
{

//do nothing

}
else
{
//add the file to database

}

}