The extract() function is a big help, but it would be even better if it returned some information about whether it assigned any variables, rather than just returning NULL.  What I really want is for the following code:

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
  extract($row);
  //do something with the variables
}

to become this:

while(extract(mysql_fetch_array($result)))
  //do something with the variables

This would be possible if extract() returned any of the following:
  -0 or 1 to indicate whether any variables were assigned
  -the number of variables assigned
  -or even the array it was given in the first place

Just a thought...
Brian