Expert PHP and MySQL®

Chapter 3. MySQL Drivers and Storage Engines

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Understanding the available PHP drivers for MySQL access

• Learning about MySQL storage engines

• Identifying features of specific storage engines for your application requirements

• Learning about the underlying disk layouts, formats, and space requirements of different storage engines

• Learning about additional MySQL-related products and specialized storage engines

While it is possible to program in PHP to produce web pages with static data, and with MySQL to create tables and manage data directly, accessing MySQL information via PHP completes the integration of LAMP stack functionality and provides a data-driven dynamic web site.

MySQL can be accessed in PHP by two different MySQL drivers. This chapter looks at these various options and the different features for drivers.

MySQL is a unique database that allows for different approaches to storing and accessing data via the concept of a storage engine. With different MySQL storage engines comes a variety of different features that can dramatically affect the application experience. As a developer, it is important to understand the differences between features, including transactional and non-transactional support, various table- and row-level locking strategies, and data integrity with foreign keys as well as different index types including btree, hash, and full-text. This chapter discusses the default built-in storage engines with MySQL and describes the variety of different ...