php + mysql_num_rows

Question

is there a more efficient way of doing the following?

$total_a = mysql_query("SELECT `id` FROM `table` WHERE `this` = 'that'");
$total_b = mysql_num_rows($total_a);

if(!$total_b)
{
    echo 'no results';
}
else
{
    $a = mysql_query("SELECT `id`, `time` FROM `table` WHERE `this` = 'that' ORDER BY `time` DESC");
    while($b = mysql_fetch_assoc($a))
    {
        echo $b['id'].'-'.$b['time'].'<br />';
    }
}

there is no other way around than using two queries for this, is there?

Answer 1

You should be able to reuse the query like so:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT `id`, `time` FROM `table` WHERE `this` = 'that' ORDER BY `time` DESC");
$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($result);

if(!$num_rows)
{
    echo 'no results';
}
else
{
    while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
    {
        echo $row['id'].'-'.$row['time'].'<br />';
    }
}