Learn SQL Database Programming

Advanced built-in functions

Advanced built-in functions allow you to do many different things, such as convert to different data types or get the current username or database name. The commonly used advanced built-in functions are listed next. Note that each of them can be used with a value, a column, or an expression.

To get information about the user or system, use the following:

• CURRENT_USER returns the username for the current connection.
• SELECT CURRENT_USER(); returns root@% (depending on who you are logged in as).
• DATABASE returns the name of the active database.
• SELECT DATABASE(); returns lahmansbaseballdb (depending on which database you are using).
• VERSION returns the current version of the MySQL database.

SELECT VERSION(); ...