seeing if there's already a username

[MatttWithOneT]

I have this code to see if a username exhists already in my database:

   $find = "SELECT * FROM characters WHERE username = '" .$user ."'";
            $howmany = mysql_query($find);

        if(mysql_query($find)) {
        	echo $this->error['not_avail'];
            return false;
            }
        else {
        	$password = md5($pass);
			$this->do_query("INSERT INTO characters ( username, password, email, SPAB1, SPAB2, race )
        	VALUES ( '$user', '$password', '$email', '$spab1', '$spab2', '$race' )");
        	return true;
            }

and it doesn't work. I was wonderin if I might get some insight please one what I could do to make this work a little better

[planetsim]

im assuming the username feild is username on this

$result = mysql_query("SELECT username FROM tbl WHERE username='$username' LIMIT 1");
$howmany=mysql_num_rows($result);
if($howmany != 1)
{
//there isnt a person with that username
}
else
{
//theres a person with that username
}

Now that should work i use it.