Cleaner PHP SQL query to value of 0 when no Results exists

I have written some PHP code that will return a value if there are results returned and return 0 if no results are returned. However, the function is very cumbersome and difficult to parse. I was wondering if there was a cleaner way to rewrite my code. Thanks in advance!

$last_question_sql="SELECT DISTINCT QUESTION_ID
                FROM branching_survey_responses
                WHERE QUESTION_ID开发者_运维技巧=(SELECT Max(QUESTION_ID)
                           branching_survey_responses
                           WHERE CUSTOMER_ID=232
                        AND SET_ID=2)
                AND CUSTOMER_ID=232
                AND SET_ID=3";

        $last_question_result=mysql_query($last_question_sql);

        if($last_question_status=mysql_fetch_assoc($last_question_result)){
            $last_question=$last_question_status['QUESTION_ID'];
        }
        else{
            $last_question= 0;
        }

---

EDIT:

i'm not sure, but if you are using this code for get back the last inserted item you can just use mysql_insert_id() example:

after the INSERT query has successfully executed you can retrieve the last id like

$last_question = mysql_insert_id();

---

function last_question($cid, $sid1, $sid2)
{
  $question = 0;
  $result = mysql_query(
  "SELECT DISTINCT QUESTION_ID 
   FROM branching_survey_responses 
   WHERE QUESTION_ID=(SELECT Max(QUESTION_ID) branching_survey_responses
   WHERE CUSTOMER_ID={$cid}
   AND SET_ID={$sid1})
   AND CUSTOMER_ID={$cid}
   AND SET_ID={$sid2}");
  if ($status = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    $question = $status['QUESTION_ID'];
  }
  return $question;
}