i have the following code:

<?php
include password.inc");

$connection = mysql_connect($host,$user,$password)
or die ("couldn't connect to server");
$db = mysql_select_db($database,$connection)
or die ("Couldn't find databse");

/* Select pets of the given type */
$query = "SELECT * FROM blah";
$result = mysql_query($query)
or die ("Couldn't execute query.");



while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result,MYSQL_ASSOC))
{
/*display row */
echo "<tr>\n";

echo "<td class='content' bgcolor='#ebebeb'>
<a href='actor.php?actor_id={$row['StarID']}'>{$row['Star_Name']}</a> \n</td>";
echo "</tr>\n";
}
?>
how do i change this so that it only displays the data if there are matching records in my database?

What do the database records have to match with? At the moment you are just pulling all the info from one table. If you only want some of the data, you need a WHERE clause in your SQL, or some php to decide whether or not to echo out the table row.

basically this is part of a table. I want it so that if there is any data in 'Star_Name' for this record then it is displayed. But if there isn't then i don't want {$row['Star_Name']} to show up at all (because it will just be blank

Oberon's right, do it with your SQL statement, like " SELECT * FROM blah WHERE Star_Name <> NULL "

Then test the results like:

PHP Code:

$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($result);
if ($num_rows >= 1) 
{
  //You've got at least one record
  echo '<table>';

    while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result,MYSQL_ASSOC))
    {
        /*display row */
       echo "<tr>\n";
       echo "<td class='content' bgcolor='#ebebeb'>
        <a href='actor.php?actor_id={$row['StarID']}'>
            {$row['Star_Name']}
        </a> \n</td>";
        echo "</tr>\n";
     }

  echo '</table>';
}