Distinct problem

[skyline]

I have:

$qry="SELECT DISTINCT(city) FROM table WHERE country='$country'";

If there are no rows with a 'city' where country=$country, it still gives 1 row result of NULL!
Why does it return a blank row rather than no rows?

[guido2004]

DISTINCT is not a function, don't put () around the column name.

If you get a row with value NULL returned, then apparently there is a row in the database where country=$country and city=NULL.