search pulling to much info

[harkly]

I have a page where I have listed the alphabets and made them clickable, pulling up a list of names. It is working except when you 1st go to the page it pulls all the data from the table. I want it to be blank until a letter is requested. What am I missing??

echo " <a href='artistHTML.php?alpha=A'>A</a> 
<a href='artistHTML.php?alpha=B'>B</a> <a href='artistHTML.php?alpha=X'>X</a>
<a href='artistHTML.php?alpha=Y'>Y</a>
<a href='artistHTML.php?alpha=Z'>Z</a><br><br>";


$search=$_GET["alpha"];

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM artist WHERE lastname like '$search%' ORDER by lastname");

$count = count(0);



        while ($r=mysql_fetch_array($result))
          {	


   $fullName=$r["fullName"];

   $dob=$r["dob"];

   $dod=$r["dod"];

   $nationality =$r["nationality"];

   $choosen_medium=$r["artForm"];

   $artid=$r["artid"];



   //display the row
                  echo $count++;

echo ". ".$fullName.", ".$nationality.", ".$dob."-".$dod."  <br><br>";
}

[YAOMK]

If you want to have a script post to itself, then you have to use a conditional statement such as "if" to test for say $_GET['alpha...'] to be true.

[djjjozsi]

<?php

$chars='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ';
/*  lets think about the artist who start with a number,   2pac? :))  */
$o=0;
while($chars[$o])
{
	print " <a href=\"artistHTML.php?alpha={$chars[$o]}\">{$chars[$o]}</a> ";

	$o++;
	if($chars[$o]=="")
	print "<br /><br />";
}

if(!empty($_GET["alpha"]))
{
	include("connect.php");
	$search=mysql_real_escape_string($_GET["alpha"][0]);
	$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM artist WHERE lastname like '$search%' ORDER by lastname") or die("error:".mysql_error());
	if(mysql_num_rows($result)>0)
	{
		$count = 0;
		while ($r=mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
		{
			extract($r); //it makes the separated variables to you from the associated array

			//display the row
			$count++;
			echo "$count.: $fullName, $nationality, $dob - $dod <br /><br />";
		}
	}
	else
		print "No result";
}

?>