best way to get COUNT from result set

there's no way to get a single result from a query (since several functions like MAX(), AVG(), COUNT(), ...) return single values... I could go like... $q = "select count(id) from table"; $rslt = mysql_query($q); $count = mysql_fetch_row($rslt); and then $count[0] would have what I want... but this is kinda "syntax ugly"... I only want ONE value... I don't want an ARRAY... of course $count = $count[0] (I'm sure a lot of people would sugest that) is possible, but is also "syntax ugly"... is there any way around this? ____________________________ . Christian Dechery (lemming) . http://www.tanamesa.com.br . Gaita-L Owner / Web Developer