Counting returned MySQL rows, and possibly storing returned recordset in a session variable

As far as I know/thought, you could include something like COUNT(*) in a list of fields to be returned from MySQL to get told how many rows were returned by mysql_query, but it doesn't seem to want to work on this instance of MySQL I have here installed inside WAMP. Also, if I try assigning the result of mysql_query to a session variable, the mysql_fetch_array function doesn't work since the result set hasn't been assigned to the current mysql session or something - is there any way to carry this over page to page without requerying the database itsself? TIA Jacob Kruger Blind Biker Skype: BlindZA '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'