Couting number of rows with a match

[thefollower]

Im trying work out how to do a count of how many rows have "userID" as "Session" (Session carries user id).

 

i got this so far:

 

$CountTotal = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM messages
				WHERE UserID='{$_SESSION['Current_User']}'");

 

obviously this will select all the messages in the UserID field but how do i just count the amount it found ?

[nathanmaxsonadil]

$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($CountTotal);

[thefollower]

i think i got the structure not quite correct can you take a look please?

 

$CountMessages = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM messages
			 WHERE UserID='{$_SESSION['Current_User']}'");

// Fetch the row from the database
if (!($Messagerow = mysql_fetch_assoc($CountMessages))) {
    echo "User not found!";
    exit;
}	

$TotalMessages = mysql_num_rows($Messagerow);