Errata

The second to last paragraph on page seven instructs Windows users setting up MySQL
to copy the MySQL configuration file (my.cnf) to systemdir/win.ini.

Under Windows, the MySQL configuration file should be copied to %WINDIR%/my.ini or
C:my.cnf. Anyone following the above procedure and copying the file to
systemdir/win.ini will be overwriting a Widows configuration file, which I am sure is
not what the authors intended.

The 2nd bullet states, "AUTO_INCREMENT columns aren't updated on insert. They are
updated if you insert into one of the underlying tables"

I've found this to be untrue as I think the following example illustrates:

CREATE TABLE table1 (
a int auto_increment not null primary key,
b varchar(10) not null
);

CREATE TABLE merge123 (
a int auto_increment not null primary key,
b varchar(10) not null
) TYPE=MERGE UNION=(table1) INSERT_METHOD=LAST;

INSERT INTO merge123 (b) VALUES('hello');
INSERT INTO merge123 (b) VALUES('hola');

CREATE TABLE table2 (
a int auto_increment not null primary key,
b varchar(10) not null
);

ALTER TABLE merge123 TYPE=MERGE UNION=(table1,table2) INSERT_METHOD=LAST;

INSERT INTO merge123 (b) VALUES('bonjour');

CREATE TABLE table3 (
a int auto_increment not null primary key,
b varchar(10) not null
);

ALTER TABLE merge123 TYPE=MERGE UNION=(table1,table2,table3) INSERT_METHOD=LAST;

INSERT INTO merge123 (b) VALUES('guten tag');

mysql> select * from merge123;
+---+-----------+
| a | b |
+---+-----------+
| 1 | hello |
| 2 | hola |
| 3 | bonjour |
| 4 | guten tag |
+---+-----------+

The only reason this works is because of the auto_increment attribute on the
merge123.a column, so the statement in the book seems misleading.

Due to MySQL bug #390, As of MySQL 4.0.13 "PRIMARY KEY" implies "NOT NULL", so this paragraph requires re-work.

To make this example work on MySQL 4.1.9, the loc column must be NOT NULL.
Attempting to create the table as described in the book generates an error:

ERROR 1252 (42000): All parts of a SPATIAL index must be NOT NULL