Developing Web Applications with Perl, memcached, MySQL® and Apache

Chapter 2. MySQL

The purpose of this chapter is to give web developers the necessary knowledge to understand and use MySQL for developing dynamic web applications. It contains the following discussions:

• The "About MySQL" section is a MySQL primer, and provides a brief overview, description and history of MySQL.

• The "Installing and Configuring MySQL" section guides you through installation and configuration to get a MySQL server running and includes database creation, setting up privileges, and setting up replication.

• The "Database Planning" section gives information on how to design an optimal database schema, set database server settings for performance, and provides simple tips to remember when developing the database architecture of a web application.

• The "Using MySQL Functionality" section covers some of the most useful components of MySQL such as triggers, functions and procedures, storage engine types, user defined functions (UDFs), as well as external language stored procedures.

How CGI and PHP Changed the Web Dramatically

In the beginning of the World Wide Web, all web site content was static. To allow for web servers to provide search functionality, the original web server code was modified. This was cumbersome and it proved difficult to provide the ability to add new functionality.

Then two specifications came into being; CGI and PHP changed the world wide web dramatically.

The CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is a standard protocol specification that was developed by a group of ...