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

Chapter 3. Advanced MySQL

Now that you have had the basics of MySQL explained in Chapter 2, it's time to explore some of MySQL's more advanced features. There is so much more to MySQL than just having a database you store data in and retrieve data from for your web application.

In the term Relational Database Management System, the words Management and System really do mean something. It's an entire system that goes beyond the simple purpose of a data store. Rather, you have a system that actually has features to manage your data, and contains the functionality that can be implemented in the database that you might otherwise have to develop into your application. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the following functions:

• First, we will cover the more advanced SQL features, including triggers, functions and stored procedures, views, and User Defined Functions (UDF). This section gives you an idea of how you might be able to use some of these features when developing web applications.

• Next, the various storage engines will be discussed. These include MyISAM, InnoDB, Archive, Federated, Tina, MySQL's internal new storage engines Maria and Falcon, as well as PBXT, a storage engine written by Primebase. Each of these storage engines has different capabilities and performance features. You'll learn when you would use each, depending on your needs.

• The section following storage engines covers replication, including a functional overview of replication, a description of different replication ...