Table shows even when if () is false

["Dan Shirah" <mrsquash2@xxxxxxxxx>]

>From my understanding, if $result_deferred_comments is empty, than none of
the code below the if should be executed, correct?

The actualy rows/columns that would contain the data do not appear, but I am
still seeing the "DEFERRED PAYMENT REQUEST COMMENTS" table. Is the only way
to block out EVERYTHING from being displayed if $result_deferred_comments is
empty to use " " around all of the HTML and not exit out of the PHP tags?
Or am I doing something else wrong?

Or, is it a problem with (!empty())?  Since the value is an array, will it
never be parsed as empty even if there is no data retrieved?

Below is my code:

<?php
$credit_card_id = $_GET['credit_card_id'];

$deferred_comments= "SELECT * FROM comments WHERE credit_card_id =
'$credit_card_id' AND request_type = 'D'";
$result_deferred_comments = mssql_query($deferred_comments) or
die(mssql_error());

if(!empty($result_deferred_comments)) {
?>
<table width="700" border="1" align="center">
  <tr>
    <td bgcolor="#FF9900">
<div align="center"><strong>DEFERRED PAYMENT REQUEST
COMMENTS</strong></div></td>
  </tr>
</table>
<table width="700" border="0" align="center">
<?php
while ($row_deferred_comments =
mssql_fetch_array($result_deferred_comments)) {
   $id_deferred_comment = $row_deferred_comments['request_id'];
   $dateTime_deferred = $row_deferred_comments['comment_date'];
   $deferred_comments = $row_deferred_comments['comments'];
   $deferred_wrap_comments = wordwrap($deferred_comments, 60, "<br />\n");
?>
<tr>
    <td width='108' height='13' align='center' bgcolor="#FFD9C6"
class='tblcell'>
      <div align='center'><?php echo "$id_deferred_comment" ?></div></td>
    <td width='148' height='13' align='center' bgcolor="#FFD9C6"
class='tblcell'>
      <div align='center'><?php echo "$dateTime_deferred" ?></div></td>
    <td width='444' height='13' align='center' bgcolor="#FFD9C6"
class='tblcell'>
<div align='left'><?php echo $deferred_wrap_comments; ?></div></td>
</tr>
<?php } ?>
</table>
<?php } ?>

Thanks,
Dan