Simple way to read single record from MySQL

Question

What\'s the best way with PHP to read a single record from a MySQL database? E.g.:

SELECT id FROM games

I was trying to find an answer in t

Answer 1

Say that you want to count the rows in an existing table:

Use mysql_result with only one parameter set to "0"

Like this:

$string = mysql_result(
          mysql_query("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM database_name.table_name ")
,0);

Put ( ` ) around database_name and table_name

var_dump($string);

// string(1) "5" //if it only has 5 records in the table

Note: if you query for something else like

SELECT * FROM database.table LIMIT 1

and the table has more than one column then you WILL NOT get an array() in your var_dump you will get the first column only