Newbie Question: If no data, display this...

kaylashay

I'm new to php and mysql. Here's an example of what I'm trying to accomplish.

I have a c_table with 4 columns.

c_id
c_pen
c_catid
c_count

I have two variables:

$penname (this equals the logged in user)
$catid (this equals the category id number)

What I want to happen is this:

If c_pen = $penname AND c_catid = $catid,

Then I'll echo some other variables.

If there isn't a row for that particular penname and catid, then I want to display something along the lines of "you have no entries, click to make one" and it will direct them to my form page to create an entry.

I have tried everything but I can't seem to get any results to check if a row exists or not. Results display just fine if the row exists, but if it doesn't I just get blanks no matter what I do.

How do I check if a row exists and if it doesn't display one thing and if it does display another???

tron00

You could count the number of rows returned

if (mysql_num_rows($result) == 0){
    // Record does not exist, show error
}
else {
     // Record exists
}

kaylashay

That's something I tried in many different formats and never got the final 'else' statement to appear.

However, I have it working now with something similar to the example below.

$items = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE pen='$penname' AND catid='$catid'");
					$itemlist = mysql_fetch_array($items);
$itemcount = $catcountlist['count'];

kaylashay

That's something I tried in many different formats and never got the final 'else' statement to appear.

However, I have it working now with something similar to the example below.

$items = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE pen='$penname' AND catid='$catid'");
$itemlist = mysql_fetch_array($items);
$itemcount = $catcountlist['count'];

kaylashay

Huh... It's cutting my code off and I don't know why...

$items = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE pen='$penname' AND catid='$catid'");
$itemlist = mysql_fetch_array($items);
$itemcount = $catcountlist [ 'count' ] ; \0\0\0\0\0ù\0\0<s\0\0\0\0â\0\0Huh... It's cutting my code off and I don't know why...

$items = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM my_table WH