My first mysql query ~ Is anything wrong with this way?

This is my first ever mysql query that I have written and after some trial and error it works. The echo part is just for testing purposes. I will assign that to another variable for the actual script.

$result = mysql_query( "SELECT * FROM user WHERE user_name='$user_name'" ) or error( mysql_error() );
	$row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_NUM);
	echo $row[2];

PHP:

Is there anything wrong with using the $row[#] method to retrieve a single item from a db row?
Is there a better way to do the same thing.

 

You can call the row header itself such as $row['blahh'] if your column header is blahh.

Makes your code a little more readable.

As a coder your job is to make your code as readable as possible. I can't count how many times I've gone back to something I wrote and spent a good while trying to figure out what the hell I was trying to do.

 

I think you said, "if my row header is named email, then I can use instead of [2]" ????????????

This works no matter whee in the row it is?

 

I tried it with ' ' and with " " and niether worked. Both of course were inside the [ ].

Maybe I did something wrong.

Okay I tried this and it worked:

It was the

that made it fail to work.

Green for you and thanks for your help.