MySQL simple select - PreparedStatement execute() returns true if not found?

[KingdomX]

The idea:
The user registers himself on the website providing an e-mail address. The system checks if this e-mail is already registered on the database.

The problem:
Well, from my understanding, PreparedStatement.execute() should return false if there are no results, but it's always returning TRUE, even though there's nothing on the table.
According to this: Statement (Java 2 Platform SE v1.4.2)

The code:

    public boolean userExists(String email)
            throws SQLException {
        Database.stmt = Database.conn.prepareStatement("SELECT * FROM "
                + "glconnect_users"
                + " WHERE email=?");
        Database.stmt.setString(1, "test@test.com");
        boolean exists = Database.stmt.execute();
        Database.stmt.close();
        return exists;
    }

Any ideas on this one?

[camickr]

I think its true because it still returns a ResultSet object, even though there are no results in the ResultSet. Try invoking the getResultSet() method and you will get a non-null object.

[doWhile]

Read the API for PreparedStatement - you are executing a query, which always returns a ResultSet, thus execute() will always return true. You could call getResultSet or call executeQuery and use the returned ResultSet to check the query result. Lastly, it would be better practice to reform your query away from SELECT *, perhaps something like SELECT count(email) would be more appropriate