How can the PHP function mysqli_num_rows be properly utilized in database queries?
When using the mysqli_num_rows function in PHP to determine the number of rows returned by a database query, it is important to first execute the query using mysqli_query and then pass the result set to mysqli_num_rows. This function returns the number of rows in the result set, which can be useful for various purposes such as checking if a query returned any results or displaying the total number of rows in a table.
// Connect to the database
$connection = mysqli_connect("localhost", "username", "password", "database");
// Execute the query
$query = "SELECT * FROM table";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);
// Check if the query returned any results
if(mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
// Process the results
while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
// Do something with each row
}
} else {
echo "No results found.";
}
// Close the connection
mysqli_close($connection);