Bill I like doing a switch statement base on the returned count from the query. I feel this gives me better control over the output. keep in mind that you can not use mysql_num_rows() with anything but a select statement. also you would turn off error reporting in the ini file since this is a system to replace that. example $query = "select userLvl from users where userName='".$_POST['userName']."'" $result = mysql_query($query,$conn); $ttlReturned = mysql_num_row($result); switch($ttlReturned) { case -1: // db error. process this and fail gracefully break; case 0: // no results returned. enter the new user break; case 1: // one record found. return a notice to the user the name exist break; default: // this would be a catch all for more than one record found. This may record a // message to be sent to the db admin to correct, if you only want one user // with this name. } // continue script with result from above..... Chris "Bill McEachran" <billmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:42CB4399.7030303@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Newbie question. > > I'm working my way through IBM's PHP tutorial. Generally good ... but I'm > stuck at an error point and have no idea what's going wrong. > Before adding a new row to the mysql database (already opened) we do a > query to see if a particular record already exists. > (see $resultT). > > We then test, using if, to see if $resultT is true or false. If it's > false we are then supposed to enter a new record. > Problem: it's never false. It always evaluates true. What am I doing > wrong? TIA > > /* build query to see if the record is entered already */ > $sqlT = "select * from users where username='".$_POST["name"]."'"; > $resultT = mysql_query($sqlT); > > /* Now test -- did we find anything ... if not add this user */ > if (! $resultT) { > /* here we add the new record if it doesn't already exit /* -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php