If (var) contains (var)

Wouldn't it be better to just check the url variable against what you have.
Your database could be megs big, putting all the info into an array (is how you'd do it) would suck up a lot of unnecessary resources.

Like Busy says, this seems like the long way round to me. Why not use a single mysql_query? It'd look something like:

$getPage=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table WHERE id = {$_GET['id'} LIMIT 1");

if(mysql_num_rows($getPage)>0){
$page=$_GET['page'];
}else{
$page=1;
}

Could you break this down a bit? I think it does what I want, but I'm not positive.

The first line tells it to get information where the page id is whatever page the url says.
I think the second line is where it doesn't work. Doesn't this just check to make sure the page id number is greater than 0? I need it to be a number that exists in the list of pages.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm really new at this, and I just have to say thanks for your help!

If you did just a copy and paste of his code then the problem is most likely just a missing ] after 'id' in the first line

$getPage is not an actual value (number, text), but a reference to the sql call.

The second line is checking that reference to see how many rows were returned. If the page number someone requested is in your database, then 1 record will return, resulting in 1, if not match was found, it will return 0. Not atually checking the page number, but how many times found in the database.

-Greg

Ok, so it is checking the variable $getPage against the number of rows. I assume it's making sure that $getPage is somewhere in the number of rows, right?

Could you just rephrase this last sentence?

Not atually checking the page number, but how many times found in the database.

$getPage=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table WHERE id = {$_GET['id']} LIMIT 1");
$getPage contains the result of the database query (table is the database tables name), Limit 1 just gets one result as there should only be one.
The $_GET['id'] is the value passed in the URL: webpage.com?id=1234, this is checked for in the mysql_query

if(mysql_num_rows($getPage)>0){
if the results is true - found a match
$page=$_GET['page'];
display whatever is related or whatever you do
}else{
$page=1;
}
no result was found so show default of something

I'll just play with the code to see, but my exact question is:

mysql_num_rows($getPage)>0

Is this checking if the number of rows in the table is greater than zero? If not, what is it checking?

Update! I think I've got it. I think that I understand what the code in my above post does, but I think I finally figured out how to check this thing!