php conditionals
<p>I'm having some trouble understanding how PHP parses conditionals. </p>

<p>For instance,</p>

<pre><code>while (list($id, $name, $salary) = mysql_fetch_row($result)) { ...}
</code></pre>

<p>(http://php.net/manual/en/function.list.php )</p>

<p>will evaluate true while the list can retrieve values. But printing the list will print the values contained within the list's variables. The manual also says that list() returns an array. How then, does the conditional know that the mysql fetch attempt was successful?</p>

<p>If it does return a boolean, how do you display it directly rather than </p>

<pre><code>if(expr) echo 'true';
</code></pre>

<p>thanks!</p>
