Function() come estrarre il risultato?

[luke83]

function Points($user_name)
{//query to calculate the points the user had earned
$query_points = "SELECT COUNT(refer_username) FROM referral WHERE refer_username = '$user_name'";
$execute_points = mysql_query($query_points);
$result_points = mysql_fetch_row($execute_points);
$points = $result_points[0];
return $points;
};