PHP / MySQL Simple IF / ELSE not so simple - php

Question

I think my mind must be going through a Boxing Day mess.
I am building a basic comment section for every game a sports team plays.
So, when no comments are entered (in the MySQL DB), I simply want to display "Be the first to enter a comment"; otherwise, display the comment results table in html format.
I can easily display the comment result table.
For some reason, I can't get the IF no comments to work properly. Feel so amateurish right now . . . :-)
I have declared row count:
$row_count = 0;
I am adding to the count inside the while statement
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
// adding to count
$row_count++;
My count is working as I can display the row number to the screen.
Here is IF / ELSE my code:
if ($row_count === 0) {
echo "<p>Be the first to enter a game comment and earn points toward your next fan badge.</p>";
} else {
// no need to show code as this already works!

Answer 1

you can use
mysql_num_rows($queryReference)
Hope this helps.
Thanks.

Answer 2

Please do one thing print this value using below function and tell me what is output
var_dump($row_count);
or you can use == instead of ===

Answer 3

$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM comments");
$c = mysql_num_rows($query);
if($c==0) {
echo "<p>Be the first to enter a game comment and earn points toward your next fan badge.</p>";
}
else {
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query))
{
$vars = $row[index];
}
}

Answer 4

$row_count = 0;
I am adding to the count inside the while statement
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
// adding to count
$row_count++;
}
My count is working as I can display the row number to the screen.
Here is IF / ELSE code:
if ($row_count == 0) {
echo "<p>Be the first to enter a game comment and earn points toward your next fan badge.</p>";
} else {
// no need to show code as this already works!
}