MySQL and mSQL are popular and robust database products that support key subsets of SQL on both Linux and Unix systems. Both products are free for nonprofit use and cost a small amount for commercial use. Even a small organization or web site has uses for a database. Perhaps you keep track of all your customers and find that your information is outgrowing the crude, flat-file format you started with. Or you want to ask your web site's visitors for their interests and preferences and put up a fresh web page that tallies the results. Unlike commercial databases, MySQL and mSQL are affordable and easy to use. If you know basic C, Java, Perl, or Python, you can quickly write a program to interact with your database. In addition, you can embed queries and updates right in an HTML file so that a web page becomes its own interface to the database. This book is all you need to make use of MySQL or mSQL. It takes you through the whole process from installation and configuration to programming interfaces and basic administration. Includes reference chapters and ample tutorial material. Topics include:

• Introductions to simple database design and SQL
• Building, installation, and configuration
• Basic programming APIs for C, C++, Java (JDBC), Perl, and Python
• CGI programming with databases in C and Perl
• Web interfaces: PHP, W3-mSQL, Lite, and mSQLPerl

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MySQL & mSQL Review,  February 07 2001
Submitted by Duncan Drury   [Respond | View]



I bought this book with office money thinking it would help me learn SQL and MySQL. Now having delved into it, I find it annoying for the following reasons:

1. It says in the back it contains ample tutorial material.
   
   This is simply not true!</li>
   
   
2. The book is not written sequentially meaning you have to skip ahead several chapters in order to understand what is said at the beginning!</li>
   
   

I think that this book was poorly edited. It reads like it was cobbled together from a number of short articles.

Further more the book is a bit old, and you are far better off following the installation instructions on the mySQL site than following what is in here.

The only plus point is that the book mentions in a couple of footnotes problems that occur in some binary distributions.

I bought this book because I wanted a book on mySQL. However I have found myself using the web anyway, and the book just sits there!


MySQL & mSQL Review,  January 30 2001
Submitted by Steffan Henke   [Respond | View]

If I had read the reviews first, I would not have bought the book, but it's too late now.

Anyway, here are my comments:

This is the worsest O'Reilly book I own, and I have quite a lot of them.

The introduction to SQL and RDBS is somewhat OK, but to read on the back of

the book PHP, W3-mSqL, Lite, and mSQLPerl is really a

strong exaggeration of what is included about PHP in the book.

The so-called "chapter" about PHP is disappointing and full of bugs.

What is included, though, is a simple called "PHP Reference", taken from

the web, including ALL the PHP functions - big deal, I can find that on the web myself and don't need that in print in a book about databases.

But the authors get quantity by printing the reference. Not much work to

cut&paste from the web, I assume.

The last thing goes about the "examples". At least the perl examples better

fit in the "obfuscated perl contest" than in a book about MySQL&msql.

The book about installation of MySQL: I suppose it could be left out because

you should probably have installed your MySQL and/or msql if you are

going to buy the book, but that's a personal opinion.

Short: Don't buy this book.

Printer out of paper while printing the errata.




MySQL & mSQL Review,  December 02 2000
Submitted by Michael Armbrecht   [Respond | View]

For me as nearly a complete novice to SQL and RDBMS this book was quite helpful

for understanding the basics of how to design a database, but unfortunately

not more.

I agree with reviewers who stated already that this book should be split in

two.

I could not find the many typing errors, but I probably got e revised version...

Best part is the SQL reference, which covers my needs and prevents the book from

getting covered with dust on the top shelf.

Michael


MySQL & mSQL Review,  October 01 2000
Submitted by Roman Blöth   [Respond | View]

This book should be divided into 2 or else solely focus on MySQL (who uses mSQL anyway?) and then be re-written to be more complete. The book-as-is doesn't really follow any single topic into depth.

The normalizing chapter could be more detailed, the insalling chapter seems to be the most complete, using the tools isn't much more than what "tool --help" delivers...

This book could be much better, but it isn't...

But then again there doesn't seem to be another book covering MySQL out there?!


MySQL & mSQL Review,  September 06 2000
Submitted by Ken Hansen   [Respond | View]

I was *encouraged* to read this book by my Instuctor, since it was the course textbook, and I found it quite useful.

If I had to point to one thing that I liked best, that would be the *extremely* focused examples in the back - there were many 10-15 line programs that did exactly what I wanted to try out.

A good book, but I came to it with a bit of Relational DB exp., from DB2 and Oracle usage a few years back, so my needs from this book were different from, say, a newbie...

Ken


MySQL & mSQL Review,  August 30 2000
Submitted by Jeff Fulmer   [Respond | View]

This book should have been divided in two. Juxtaposition of MySQL and mSQL leads only to less understanding of both. If you plan to cover two applications in one book, then divide the coverage in half. Pages 1 - 200 cover MySQL, pages 201 to 400 cover mSQL.


MySQL & mSQL Review,  May 24 2000
Submitted by Joseph Eddy   [Respond | View]

After reading the other reviews, I am glad to see that most of them agree with me.

I don't know how ANYONE could POSSIBLY praise this as a decent book. There are so many typos in the text and (especially) in the sample code that it's rediculous!

O'Reilly should be embarassed to have such a book in their lineup.

Although it explains nicely how MySQL and relational database systems actually work, it doesn't really give you much information on how to use one.

I also take a little bit of umbrage at the fact that the book assumes the reader is running the server he's using and has root privileges.

Bleurgh. A pile of stinky ----


MySQL & mSQL Review,  February 09 2000
Submitted by Dan Holtz   [Respond | View]



As most of you probably do, I have modest O'Reilly library on my shelf. I waited for months for this book to ship. I was very excited to finally get a grasp on using the MySQL engine via PERL.

I was pretty disappointed once I got it though. The SQL reference is ok, but not great. The PERL examples are cryptic and poorly explained. And the coverage of using the Mysql.pm (instead of the generic DBI.pm) is crappy at best.

I found far more useful information at http://www.mysql.com and at http://www.cpan.org. Don't waste your time and money on this one. Go to the CPAN and read up on Mysql.pm, and pick up a basic SQL reference book if you need it.

Sorry, O'Reilly... a swing and a miss!


MySQL & mSQL Review,  February 02 2000
Submitted by Eric   [Respond | View]



A disappointing effort for ORA. Being a database neophyte, I was continually frustrated by the superficial coverage of what I suspect are key db issues. Most of the difficulties I experienced with this book are listed in the "Unconfirmed error reports and comments from readers". Unfortunately, although the issues are reported in that document, they aren't addressed. This results in the book being, for the most part, a bright paperweight. Hopefully a second edition will be forthcoming and thorough.


MySQL & mSQL Review,  January 17 2000
Submitted by Keith Vance   [Respond | View]



I really enjoy O'Reilly books, but this one was a bit lacking. My biggest problem was that it should have really spent a lot more time dealing with SQL statements. How to put information into a relation database and do queries on multiple tables. I ended getting most of the information that I needed from the MySQL mailing list. The book helped me to understand the concept of a relational database, but I had to figure out for myself how to actually implement it and make a useful program with it. I would have rather they didn't spend as much time on the individual programming languages and spent more time on MySQL and msql. PHP, Java, and all the other languages can fill their own books or volumes quite easily. There should have been more real world examples of different database structures and implementations.

Maybe next time.


MySQL & mSQL Review,  January 16 2000
Submitted by Tom McCubbin   [Respond | View]



IN BRIEF: WAIT FOR THE NEXT VERSION

LONG VERSION:

I love O'Reilly Books!

THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM! Where is 'A Guest Book Servlet?' (not in the examples off you ftp site?)
I am a professional developer/consultant leading a team of developers @ one of the largest mutual fund companies in the US. This book is filled w/ typo's. I would be fired if my boss saw a one page report from me like this! Had it passed over the desk of a competent proof reader, I may be more pleased. Sure, I have been able to figure out most of the details that were altogether left out, but I could have done this w/ the docs provided via man, info, and the doc's provided w/ the JDBC driver. I didn't need this book!

The chapter on JDBC didn't even point out an actual Driver implementation, although it said there were two? Why not show specific examples w/ bread and butter, not fiction? The perl section proved informative, if you had no experience w/ DMI/DBD.

Overall, the book tries to touch on every aspect of relational db mgmt, the various layers of access, and other topics that didn't seem to belong in the book. 3 tier archs? Client/Server archs? Data processing? Maybe these would be best left in a general db mgmt book, relational design, designing 3 tier applications, or the like.

The title would indicate msql and MySql...but that was the sorry half off it!


MySQL & mSQL Review,  January 08 2000
Submitted by Leif Ohman   [Respond | View]



One reviewer said he had set up his first application the same day he bought the book. The only problem I have had so far was that I had an old version of Linux. I got an error message: "This version of MySQL requires Linux 2.0 or higher". I upgraded my favorite Linux distribution (Patrick Volckerding's Slackware), again followed the instructions in the book and MySQL came up without any problems.

I was amazed how small it was. The zip file was only 4 MB. Compare that to the more than 100 megabytes needed to download Oracle 8i Lite (that's Lite, not "Enterprise" edition, not even the "Personal" edition of Oracle 8i). And yet it has more than 80-85% of Oracle's functionality, per Yarger in the "Author Interview" page. That's actually mind-boggling. Somebody actually put that much of Oracle's functionality into 4% of the code Oracle needs?

I started reading the section about normalization, wondering if yet another overview of the topic could provide much value. It was the clearest explanation I have seen so far. I am not surprised the Linux Journal reviewer praised it.

I have only started reading the book, but so far it definitely lives up to my high expectations of an O'Reilly book.

I am surprised so many of the Reader reviews sound so negative. I am glad I bought the book first and read the reviews afterwards. I am actually rather annoyed to think that I might never have bought the book otherwise. Then again, I try to take reader reviews with a grain of salt. After all, how much time and effort goes into writing a book, compared to writing a review of it?

I hope the people who read these reviews also read the other background materials on this site, such as the Author Interview. That should give them a more balanced view that better matches the impression I have so far.

Leif Ohman



MySQL & mSQL Review,  December 29 1999
Submitted by Mark Baier   [Respond | View]



I really like and refer to my O'Reilly books often . I now have one I will never use. This is the worst book I have seen from them. There are many technical mistakes in the examples and explanations. They even left out basic parts of the SQL commands. To add insult to disapointment the binding broke after using it only three times. I thought I was lucky seeing it on the 20% off rack.

You are much better off with the documentation that comes with MySQL.


MySQL & mSQL Review,  December 19 1999
Submitted by Sorin   [Respond | View]



Definitly the worst O'Reilly book I'm bought. Numerous technical errors abound, the book causes more frustration than reading the standard MySQL docs. The organization of the information is also frustrating for both reading and reference. Find another MySQL/mSQL book.


MySQL & mSQL Review,  November 22 1999
Submitted by Laurie Young   [Respond | View]



By far the worst O'Reilly book I have come across! The section on Database theory is thorough enough - but uses an entirely different terminology from the rest of the book. The section on MySQL goes into detail on how to use the mysqladmin program for looking at the size of tables and other things about the server, but at no point does it tell you how to submit SQL commands to MySQL - admittidly this is quite simple (use the mysql command) but it still should have been included. Neither does the book explain that you join tables when when you retrieve data from them but gives the impression that they need to be joined when you set up the data base. The tutorial on the MySQL home pages is far superior!

I could go on...

However it must be said that the book did provide a place to start learning about SQL, many thanks to O'Reilly for supporting these non-comercial alternatives to standard apps. Please can we have this book looked at and improved to the standard that we have come to expect from O'Reilly


MySQL & mSQL Review,  November 21 1999
Submitted by Adam   [Respond | View]



I own eighteen Oreilly books at the moment. Of all
of them this one has to be the biggest disappointment. It is riddled with typographical,
grammatical, stylistic, and technical errors. Most of these are addressed and documented in the errata however. Additionally, this book is an unnecessarily hard read due to poor explations and details of key concepts and examples. While the actual content of this book is magnificent, solid, and well thought out, I would highly recommend waiting for the second printing of this book before purchasing it.


MySQL & mSQL Review,  October 30 1999
Submitted by F. Heasley   [Respond | View]



Quite disappointed. It is unfortunate that mySQL/mSQL is probably the best printed material on this subject. As a newcomer to mySQL, but with solid backgrounding in dbase and other database software, I expected little difficulty in picking this up. Based on my experience with other OReilly publications, this book offered the promise of being a useful learning tool. However, after running into multiple indecipherable typographical errors, and example programs that didn't work, I've given up on using this as anything but a highly questionable reference.


MySQL & mSQL Review,  October 18 1999
Submitted by tom carlile   [Respond | View]



i thought the book was a decent introduction. i had very little prior SQL experience but still found this book a little shallow. one major problem i had was that this books claims MySQL is a relational database engine, but describes no methodology for defining these relationships. after some discussion with others i found that MySQL does not even implement the concepts of linking tables or referential integrity, these are needed for the sample db created in the beginning of the book. it is stated that he will "get to them later" but never does, because they don't exist...?


MySQL & mSQL Review,  October 18 1999
Submitted by Wing   [Respond | View]



Dissapointed! Nothing new, nothing special. This book just look like a fine print of mysql.com online manuel. I have also find some typos and bugs inside its perl and c programs. (I have not read through php and java yet) BUT I will suggest you to purchase this book. Use it as a menuel of Mysql, it would be better then print out the mysql online manuel page by page.


MySQL & mSQL Review,  October 10 1999
Submitted by Michiel Trimpe   [Respond | View]



I was actually quite dissapointed by how the shallowness of the book. It just skims over a dozen of the most important features. I would really have liked some more indepth knowledge, especially on optimizing the performance. As I was already quite familiar with SQL this book unfortunately hardly added anything to my knowledge, which wasn't worth the $35 + $7 S/H. I hope that the newer version will cover these issues a bit more sufficiently.


MySQL & mSQL Review,  October 07 1999
Submitted by Michael Müller-Hillebrand   [Respond | View]



About the typos: I was also quite disappointed to find such a poor craftmanship in an O'Reilly book. Talking about the second printing: Is there an update program available? Otherwise my first project has still to start.


MySQL & mSQL Review,  October 05 1999
Submitted by Peter Bracken   [Respond | View]



I've only gone through the first section of the book so far but it really is an excellent introduction into the concepts behind relational databases and their design. I did, however, notice a few small typos too. So it may be a good idea to wait for the second edition if you're totally new to the whole thing. Otherwise rush out and get this book! Another fine offering from ORA. :)


MySQL & mSQL Review,  September 25 1999
Submitted by Chris Smith   [Respond | View]



With all the hype from the big guys (Oracle and Microsoft) excellent alternatives can go unnoticed. Kudos to O'Reilly for publishing this well done book (once the mistakes are corrected). If I may complain a bit ... I would love to see a definition of a medium database (in bytes that is) and a book devoted to just MySQL. Thanks.


MySQL & mSQL Review,  September 24 1999
Submitted by Erik Schorr   [Respond | View]



It's nice to finally see a high-profile book released for MySQL (and in all fairness mSQL, even though it's not nearly as popular)
This should help boost recognition for these two fine, and FREE, database systems, as well as give practical examples for everyone to use to get their systems and applications to work with them.
A few typos and inaccuracies, as others have pointed out, but the value of the book is still worth every penny.
Good job, ORA, I hope you rush to get another edition out for this book.



MySQL & mSQL Review,  September 16 1999
Submitted by chris devers   [Respond | View]



Wait for a second printing. The material was solid, but there is a shocking number of typos, errors, misprints, and just plain sloppiness. Much of it I only caught because I'd been exposed to the same concepts elsewhere and recognized poor implementations here -- and I'm not very experienced. For an O'Reilly book especially, this was very disappointing. On the whole, the book was good, but wait for a second printing and a large batch of revisions.


MySQL & mSQL Review,  September 08 1999
Submitted by Will Cottay   [Respond | View]



This book is extremely useful and very well written.

I purchased it in the morning and by the same night had converted a flat file application to mysql.

The use of CGI in the examples in chapter 10 tend to obscure the DBI code, but the they are useful none the less.

There seems to be a problem with the example on page 386, DBI::fetchrow_hashref. If one really wants the field namesin the array @field_names as the comments indicate,

the line:

my %row1 = $mytable_output->fetchrow_hashref;

should read:

my %row1 = %{$mytable_output->fetchrow_hashref};

Again, thanks for a very nice manual.



MySQL & mSQL Review,  September 01 1999
Submitted by Thomas Tsoi   [Respond | View]



The book is simply a great one!
What I can tell is that I used to hate database stuff and regarded them as the most boring thing ever. But my view changed after reading MySQL and mSQL.

The book provides you a very clear concept of what databases are and how they work, it also comes with a number of clear examples. However, in fact, I personally would prefer heavier contents on the programming part.

About the programming part, some codes don't work, due to some typo. But it shouldn't a big due, if you are not a newbie in programming, you should be able to correct them (just run your perl interpreter and check the error message otherwise).

Oh yea, I wonder if I could get the source codes listed in the book in O'reilly's homepage or from a companion CD-ROM, that would be nice for lazy people like me. ^-~




MySQL & mSQL Review,  August 24 1999
Submitted by chris devers   [Respond | View]



The book looks good so far -- I'm only on chapter
three -- but I have a submission for the errata
list: table 2-2 on page 27 seems incorrect. It
lists RecordLabelName (a text field) as a 2nd
primary key for the RecordLabel table, then says
why it couldn't be a primary key (only one primary
key per table, can't be a text field, etc). Pretty
sure it's just a typo in the table, but I thought
I'd let you know...


MySQL & mSQL Review,  August 02 1999
Submitted by naoko ogawa   [Respond | View]



I read sample. Nice!!
If I see the book, I will buy.
And if I have some chance, I will interprit in Japanese.



MySQL & mSQL Review,  August 02 1999
Submitted by Stephen Zedalis   [Respond | View]



Just got mine in. Looks like just what the doctor
ordered. Appears to be of the same high quality
as the rest of my ORA bookshelf. Thanks, O'Reilly.



MySQL & mSQL Review,  July 29 1999
Submitted by Brian   [Respond | View]



Love the sample chapter, where is the real book?

See larger cover