4. Introduction to MySQL

In This Chapter

Naming Database Elements 112

Choosing Your Column Types 114

Choosing Other Column Properties 118

Accessing MySQL 121

Review and Pursue 128

Because this book discusses how to integrate several technologies (primarily PHP, SQL, and MySQL), a solid understanding of each individually is important before you begin writing PHP scripts that use SQL to interact with MySQL. This chapter is a departure from its predecessors in that it temporarily leaves PHP behind to delve into MySQL.

MySQL is the world’s most popular open-source database application (according to MySQL’s Web site, www.mysql.com) and is commonly used with PHP. The MySQL software comes with the database server (which stores the actual data), different ...

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