mysql_query return TRUE on empty table

Question

$rs = mysql_query("SELECT user, userid FROM House WHERE userid='$userid'");

This return Resource id #37 The table House is empty, shouldn't it return FALSE? According to the manual http://php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-query.php

I have always gotten FALSE on error, but not this time. Can someone explain, thanks!

Answer 1

If there is nothing wrong with your query, then mysql_query() will not return false . An empty result set is not an error.

Calling any of the fetch functions against that result will return false . mysql_num_rows() will return 0 .

Answer 2

For SELECT, SHOW, DESCRIBE, EXPLAIN and other statements returning resultset, mysql_query() returns a resource on success, or false on error .

For other type of SQL statements, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, DROP, etc it returns trueon success or false on error.