Check if MySQL table exists or not

Question

Possible Duplicate:
MySQL check if a table exists without throwing an exception

I have a dynamic mysql query builder in my project that creates select queries from different tables.
I need to check if the current processing table exists or not.
Imagine that my tables are table1, table2, and table3. My code is something like this:

<?php
for($i = 1 ; $i <= 3 ; $i++) {
   $this_table = 'table'.$i;
   $query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $this_table");
   // ...
}
?>

How can I do this check (Please tell me the simplest way).

Answer 1

Updated mysqli version:

if ($result = $mysqli->query("SHOW TABLES LIKE '".$table."'")) {
    if($result->num_rows == 1) {
        echo "Table exists";
    }
}
else {
    echo "Table does not exist";
}

Original mysql version:

if(mysql_num_rows(mysql_query("SHOW TABLES LIKE '".$table."'"))==1) 
    echo "Table exists";
else echo "Table does not exist";

Referenced from the PHP docs.