MySQL, 5th Edition

E. SQL Syntax Reference

This appendix describes the syntax for SQL statements provided by MySQL. Unless otherwise indicated, the statements listed here have been present in MySQL at least as early as MySQL 5.5.0. Changes made since then are so noted.

This appendix has three parts:

• SQL statements other than those for compound statements.

• SQL statements used for compound statements, which are written using BEGIN and END and can be used for writing stored programs: functions, procedures, triggers, and events that are stored on the server side.

• The syntax for writing comments in SQL code. Comments are used to write descriptive text that is ignored by the server, and to hide MySQL-specific keywords that will be executed by MySQL but ignored ...