Question

I have a URL shortener script that makes the user provide the record ID then redirects them. However, I want to be able to redirect the user to a specific page if the record they searched for does not exist. How can I do this?

My current code is:

<?

mysql_connect("localhost","username","password");
mysql_select_db("database");

$sql="select * from shortened where (shortened.id='".mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['url'])."')";
$query=mysql_query($sql);
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query)){
header('Location:'.$row['url']);
}

?>

I hope people can understand what I’m trying to describe.

Answer 1

Put

if (!mysql_num_rows($query)) {
    header('Location: http://google.com');
    exit;
}

right before your while part

And your while could be actually rewritten as:

$row = mysql_fetch_array($query);
header('Location:'.$row['url']);

(yes, just remove while – it is pointless in this case)