mysql Chapter One (Introduction)

This manual may be used freely if it is not sold. If you want to include it as part of a commercial product you must contact me (Michael J. Miller Jr, mke@netcom.com) for terms and conditions.

Now that we've gotten past that, to the good stuff.

I've created a tutorial/sample database that is used in the examples listed throughout this manual. You can find it in Appendix B. Currently there aren't a lot of examples. As mysql has stabilized now I hope to add a lot of examples before making the 1.0 release of this manual.

At the top of each chapter you'll find the following two labels.

The first indicates that this is version 0.80 of my manual for mysql. The second indicates that this manual contains information for mysql version 3.20.16. If you are using an older version there will be information in this manual that doesn't apply to you. If you are running a newer version there are likely to be features that are not documented by this version.

The latest version of this manual will always be available at

HTTP://terrapin.turbolift.com/mysql.

A work in progress version can be found at.

HTTP://terrapin.turbolift.com/mysql/testing/.

The WIP version will be updated as I make corrections and add new stuff. The Index is likely to be the last thing I update before a release, so don't rely on it.

I want to thank David Axmark for maintaining the excellent mysql FAQ from which much of the content of this manual has been taken. I also want to thank all the mysql users who have sent in corrections and suggestions. This sort of help makes a BIG difference. I want to especially thank Bert Vermeulen for extensive help in the formatting of this manual.

The client portion of mysql has been placed in the public domain while most of the rest of mysql is distributed under the license listed in appendix A of this document. There are small portions that are covered by either a Berkeley style copyright, or GNU licenses.

David Axmark created and maintains the autoconf portion of mysql, along with maintaining the mysql FAQ.

The latest version of mysql can be found at HTTP://www.tcx.se.

• Multi-threading. (Supports multiple simultaneous queries.)
• A Join Optimizer with one pass multi-join.
• Fixed and variable length records.
• An ODBC driver. (With source)
• A flexible privilege and password system.
• Up to 16 keys per table. Each key may have up to fifteen fields.
• Support for primary key fields, key fields and unique fields in CREATE.
• Support for the one to four byte ints, float, double, fixed and variable length strings, time stamps, variable length strings and blobs.
• C and Perl API.
• A fast thread based malloc system.
• A fast table check and repair utility. (isamchk)
• All data saved in ISO8859_1.
• All string comparisons for normal string fields are case insensitive. (Binary strings supported.)
• Aliases on tables and columns.
• All fields have default values. INSERT may be used on any subset of fields.
• The capability to easily redefine tables; including adding and deleting keys and fields.

For more information see Chapter 3.

The mysql database system also provides a C library API. You can use the C library API to query a database, insert data, create tables, etc. The C API supports all mysql functionality. For more information on the C programming API please see chapter 4.

PERL is supported in two ways. First of all there is a port of the perl mini-SQL interface written by Andreas Koenig (a.koenig@mind.de). There is also a perl DBD module available. For more information on the PERL API's see chapter 5.

There is also a 32bit ODBC drive available for the mysql database system. This driver will enable you to load and retrieve data from other data sources that support ODBC. For more information on the ODBC driver see the mysql home page.