[SOLVED] Question about SELECT

[cenarius]

I wanna check if the value I am searching, exists in the database or not and then using if/else statement in PHP.

 

This is the SQL code inside the php code. The selection is stored in variable $existing

SELECT Player FROM Players
WHERE Player='$player'

 

$player is the value I am searching for (taken out of form).

 

 

The php part which is bothering me:

if ($existing == ?????)

 

What to put in there? What is the result if no match is found? FALSE? NULL?

 

 

MySql version: 5.0.81

 

 

 

[smerny]

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Players WHERE Player='".$player."'");

$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($result);

 

if ($num_rows == 0)

  echo "this player does not exist in the database";

[cenarius]

Thank you