Question

My dropdown list shows empty. I am not sure if my query returns any records. How can I find out if my query returned any result? Here is my code. Please let me know. I am stuck with this issue.

 <?php $link = mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "root"); 
            if (!$link) {     die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error()); } 
            echo 'Connected successfully'; 

                mysql_select_db("mydb");  
                $sql = "SELECT state_id, state_code FROM states"; 
                $result = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());
                ?>

 <p>  
<select name="vers">  
 <?  

 while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){ 
   echo "<option value=\"".$row['state_id']."\">".$row["state_code"]."</option>";   
 }  
 ?>  
 </select>

<?
            mysql_close($link); 
            ?> 

Answer 1

Test the success or failure of your query with if (!$result) and use mysql_num_rows() to verify the number of rows returned. Rather than die(), you can display a better error to your user and possibly render different HTML, rather than just exit the script abruptly.

  mysql_select_db("mydb");  
  $sql = "SELECT state_id, state_code FROM states"; 
  $result = mysql_query($sql);

  // Instead of die(), use a construct like this for better error handling on your page
  if (!$result) {
    // query error
  }     

  if (mysql_num_rows($result) === 0) {
    // No rows returned
  }
  else {
    // Success! Populate your <select> with <option>s
    while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){ 
     echo "<option value=\"".$row['state_id']."\">".$row["state_code"]."</option>";   
    }
  }

UPDATE

Add an empty default option. Make sure its value attribute is not something you would retrieve from your database.

<select name="vers"> 
  <option value='-1'>Choose an option...</option>