passing url variables cannot compare

[lilfellabob]

Hi,

I'm trying to write somthing to verify a users email address before setting the 'active' column in a database. I've been looking at the tutorial here 'http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/how-to-implement-email-verification-for-new-members/' but my problem is that when I get the email and hash from the url it looks like this:

\'emailaddress@domain.com\'

so when I compare it to my database email it doesn't match - since the database email is:

emailaddress@domain.com

I would've thought this would still match using

while($row=mysql_fetch_array('$query'))
{
    if($_REQUEST['email'] == $row['email'])
     {
        #run code
     }
} 

but it doesn't.. I tried using one equals sign but it just returns 1 for any email address in the database :S

I also tried just looking at mysql_num_rows like this:

$check = mysql_query("SELECT email, hash, active FROM users WHERE email='".$_REQUEST['email']."' AND hash = '".$_REQUEST['hash']."' AND active = '0'") or die('Sorry, a mysql error occured');
$result = mysql_num_rows($check); 

but it still doesn't work... In the tutorial I notice he calls variables from the url just by using $email and not $_GET['email'] or $_REQUEST['email'] but when I tried that it returns blank.. wtf?

Please help me, I feel like I'm ready to stab someone.

Thanks,

bob