my @rows;
my $z = @rows;  # There is nothing in @rows yet, so $z is 0
if ($z = 0) {   # but in any case, this will never return true!
print "We are sorry, but your search did not return any results.<P />\n";
print "<input type=\"button\" value=\"  Try again  \" onClick=\"history.go(-1)\">\n";
print "$tbl_ref\n";
}

##</code><code>##

my $column = ( $type eq 'alpha' ) ? 'name' : "CONCAT_WS(' ',keywords,category)";

my $query = "SELECT name, address, city, phone FROM valley ".
    "WHERE $column LIKE ? ORDER BY name LIMIT ?,?";
             
my $sth = $dbh->prepare( $query );
$sth->execute( "%$search%", $start-1, $per_page+1 );

my $table_ref = $sth->fetchall_arrayref;

# here is where/how you check whether anything was returned:

if ( ref( $table_ref ) ne 'ARRAY' or @$table_ref == 0 ) {
    ...
}

##</code><code>##

   name1   name2
   name3   name4
   ...

##</code><code>##

for my $table_row ( @$table_ref ) {
    my @table_cols = map { (defined($_) && /\S/) ? $_ : '&nbsp;'} @$table_row;

    push @rows, Tr( \@table_cols );
}
$page .= "<b>" . table( {-border => 0, width=> 550}, \@rows) . "</b>" . br();

##</code><code>##

    $page .= '&nbsp; ' x 35;