How to count entries in table

[imnsi]

I just want to return in PHP the number of rows in an SQL database so that I can get the last entry. What should I do?

[imnsi]

I treid my own code and it goes like this:

$sql2 = "SELECT 'id' FROM tc_pat";

$result2 = mysql_query($sql2) or die ("Sorry the login for $user is invlaid, please try again, or contact the network administrator for furthur assistance. ERROR#787");

$lastrow = mysql_num_rows($result2);

$lastid = $result2[$lastrow];

$nextid = $lastid + 1;

but it doest work! What do I do 😕

[imnsi]

Oh yeah I dont just need the last row, I need to know a value of the first colomn of the last row. Anyone?

[tomhath]

select max(id) from tc_pat

But that's not a good way to create the next id value for several reasons, primarily because you are almost sure to end up with duplicate ids in your database.

Mysql provides the autoincrement attribute http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/example-AUTO_INCREMENT.html and php let's you get the value just inserted with the mysql_insert_id function http://www.phpbuilder.com/manual/function.mysql-insert-id.php