check db to see if data is there

[PaulaRun]

I'm new to PHP (thus the stupid question!) and I'm trying to figure out how to see if a field is in the database within PHP.

If I don't have a photo for the product, I would like to display "no photo available" rather than have a broken link. Here is my code:

if (stripslashes($row["image_path"]) == "") {
echo '<img border="0" src="images/dist_images2/nophoto.gif" width="140" height="60"></font></td>';
}else{
echo "<img border=\"0\" src=\"" . stripslashes($row["image_path"]) . "\" width=\"140\" height=\"60\"></font></td>";
}

This part is incorrect: if (stripslashes($row["image_path"]) == "")

How can I ask if the image is not in the db??

Thanks!

[mahers]

if(strlen($row["image_path"]) == 0)

// or
if(empty($row["image_path"]))

// or
if($row["image_path"] == "")

I'm not exactly sure if there is a standard way to do this, but one of the above should suffice.

[PaulaRun]

Thanks Mahers.

I tried your suggestions and they didn'twork - I think it is because the entry in the database "image_path" has something in it but it points to a flat file (where the images are kept) and the image isn't there. Does that make sense?

To get around it, I can manually point the image_path to the nophoto.jpg. I'd like the PHP code to take care of that for me.

Thanks for you help!

[mahers]

Can you post an example of what the image_path field contains?

[foamy]

I would just modify the last method posted by mahers and change it to something like:

if($row["image_path"]_=="default for field"

Since you mentioned that the "image_path" field has "something" in it, I'm assuming that this "something" is the same for all entries that don't have an image? If so, then replace the "default for field" with whatever you have in that location, then give it a try.

From one Noob to another, I hope that helps.

[PaulaRun]

The image path field contains the following for product CS800:
images/dist_images2/cs800.jpg

For every product, I have the image path pointing to the item_number.jpg

I run into trouble when there is no .jpg for the product. I don't want to manually point the image path to a nophoto.jpg because then I'll have to keep up with it. I'd like the image path to point to the item_number.jpg and have PHP check to see if it is there. If the item_number.jpg isn't there, then have PHP point to the nophoto.jpg (which has the message "no photo for this item").

I guess the best thing would be to set the database up to point to nophoto.jpg as a default

Thank you Foamy and Mahers for your help, it's much appreciated!

[mahers]

if(!file_exists(strip_slashes($row['image_path']))) {
    echo '<img border="0" src="images/dist_images2/nophoto.gif" width="140" height="60"></font></td>';
}
else {
    echo "<img border=\"0\" src=\"" . stripslashes($row["image_path"]) . "\" width=\"140\" height=\"60\"></font></td>"; 

}

[PaulaRun]

Thanks Mahers, that's great!!

😃