check is record exists.

[Damien_Buttler]

I have written a simple program that adds users to a table from a form. What I can't do though is check the table to see if the new user already exists before he/she is added. I have tried mysql_query but it always returns TRUE whether the user exists or not.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Damien.

[J_ystick_FI]

use mysql_num_rows() function should fit you nice

ex:

$result = mysql_query("Select...");
$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($result);

if $num_rows > 0 your user already exists otherwise no

😃 J@ystick_FI😃

[[deleted]]

On the other hand you should add a 'unique' index to the table so the database will refuse to add duplicate data (for example, duplicate usernames)

Then after you insert (Note: after you insert) you will either get an 'ok' from mysql_query(), or mysql will throw an error mantioning something about 'cannot insert duplicate value for key bladebla'

Doing a select before inserting is bad, because this is a multi-user environment. It is very well possible that two people try to add a user with the same name, at the same time. Then the four queries (4!) would overlap and you'd have to check which queries worked anyway.