So, you are looking for a simple way to return the number of entries returned from a database query.
mysql_num_rows
This command counts all the rows currently defined by the database query and returns this value. The best way to use this command, is while saving it the a variable.
Example
<?php
$link = mysql_connect(“localhost”, “mysql_user”, “mysql_password”);
mysql_select_db(“database”, $link);
$result = mysql_query(“SELECT * FROM table1”, $link);
$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($result);
echo “$num_rows Rows\n”;
?>
Now, if your database contained 12 entries, your output would look like this:
12 Rows
What do you think?