PHP/MySQL question - long

Hi all,

How do I check for an empty string in PHP/MySQL.
Scenario:

I have two query returning different results not necessarily of equal length:

$queryjobs1 = "SELECT ticket.t_id, t_client, t_summary, e_assignedto, 
e_status FROM ticket, events ";
$queryjobs1 .="WHERE e_assignedto = '$user' AND e_status = 'OPEN'  AND 
ticket.t_id = events.t_id";
$jobresult1 = mysql_query($queryjobs1, $mysql_link) or die("query failed, " . 
mysql_error());

Which brings up a list of open tickets.

$queryjobs2 = "SELECT ticket.t_id, t_client, t_summary, e_assignedto, 
e_status FROM ticket, events ";
$queryjobs2 .="WHERE e_status = 'CLOSED'  AND ticket.t_id = events.t_id";
$jobresult2 = mysql_query($queryjobs2, $mysql_link) or die("query failed, " . 
mysql_error());

Which brings up a list of closed tickets.

I then want to compare these to each other to print only the open tickets:

	<? if ($jobresult1) { 						// if there are jobs for the user
		print "<b>Your unresolved ticket(-s)</b>";
		print "<table>";					// build a table to show them
		print "<tr 
bgcolor='lightGray'><td>Ticket</td><td>Client</td><td>Task</td></tr>";
		while($summary=mysql_fetch_row($jobresult1)) {          //while there are 		
									//open tickets
		  $ticket = $summary[0];	        	                //get a list of 										
								//opened tickets.
    			 $client = $summary[1];
			 $work = $summary[2];
			 echo - $ticket;	 			//debug line - prints "- ticket_ID"
			 while($summary2=mysql_fetch_row($jobresult2)) {   // get list of closed 		
										//tickets
			   // now circle through a list of closed tickets
			   $ticketclosed = $summary2[0];
			   echo  $ticketclosed; 				// debug line prints "ticket_ID"
			   if ($ticket <> $ticketclosed) {                                  //as 		
									//long as we don't get a match
		                                                              		// we're 			
									//looking for open tickets not closed.
			     print "<tr><td>$ticket</td><td>$client</td><td>$work</td></td>"; 
//print the ticket
			   }
			  }
			 
		}
	
		print "</table>";

	}
	?>

This print (with one open and one closed ticket) -11-2 (se above) but the 
second compare fails as open ticket 2 isn't compared to anything and won't 
print. How do I put in a "catch empty string" statement. It should be fairly 
simple but it escapes me right now.

Any suggestions?

M.

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