Question

I am trying to get a count and I am getting 1 instead of 0 from it. I have looked thoroughly though the web and this site. I have even been trying to figure it out on my own for a long time. I keep coming empty handed here.

So Basically what I am trying to do is make a like system for my users. I can get everything to work correctly the count works except for one thing. When they have liked it it returns 1 not 0 which it should be.

Here is my code for the count. I am not posting all the coding for security reasons and it really doesn’t need to since its about the counting part not the rest.

$sql_like = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM posts WHERE mem2_id='$id' ORDER BY post_date DESC LIMIT 40");

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql_like)){

$like1 = $row['like_array'];
$like3 = explode(",", $like1);
    $likeCount = count($like3);


}

So here is the code that determines the number. Any ideas what is wrong with this? Why its returning 1 not 0 when the item is empty?

Answer 1

// you do escape your id right??? (sql injection prevention)
$sql_like = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM posts WHERE mem2_id='$id' ORDER BY post_date DESC LIMIT 40");

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql_like)){
    $likeCount = 0;
    $like1 = trim($row['like_array']);
    if ($like1) {
        $like3 = explode(",", $like1); // exploding emtpy string would result in array('')
        $likeCount = count($like3);
    }
}