setting variables from a returned recordset

[csxpcm]

hello everyone.
Just a quick question, the code below works, but I cant help thinking it could be improved. the SQL query retrieves an authors details based on a unique ID. Hence, I dont think I need a while loop to set the variables $name and $email. However, if i don't enclose these variables in a while loop, they dont get set. Is there another way?

Thanks in advance, all suggestions much appreciated.

$authors = mysql_query("select Name, EMail from Authors where ID=$id");
if (!$authors)
{
echo("<p>Error retrieving authors from the database!<br>".
"Error: " . mysql_error());
exit();
}

while ($author = mysql_fetch_array($authors)) {
$name = $author["Name"];
$email = $author["EMail"];
}

[devinemke]

if you are expecting the result set to only include one record (which seems to be the case when using unique id's) you could use the extract() function instead of the while loop:

extract (mysql_fetch_assoc ($authors));

this would create 2 variables: $Name and $EMail