error msg when a nick is already taken

[spectacell]

Hello!

I have a page were users register with there nickname. I want the page to write out a nice little error msg when a nickname already is in the database.

Some code that search through the database and if it finds the nick the user tried to register with it writes something like:
"Sorry that nick is already taken, try another."

How do I write it?

Thanks in advance!

Regards
/Emil Hansson

[leatherback]

Assuming a MySQL database, Php page, somethin like:

$query = "Select * from database where nickname = $SubmittedNickName";

$result =@ mysql_query($query);

if ( mysql_num_rows($result) )
{
echo 'Sorry, this Nick is already taken';
}

[devinemke]

assuming mySQL:

$result = mysql_query ("SELECT nickname FROM table WHERE nickname = '$nickname'");
if (mysql_num_rows ($result)) {echo 'The nickname you entered, ' . $nickname . ', is already taken';}

[spectacell]

ah!!

Didn't think of that! Thank you very much for the help guys!

/Emil Hansson