Chapter 12. Intro to Databases

Strange as it may sound, the Internet wouldn’t be where it is today if not for the existence of databases. In fact, PHP probably wouldn’t be as popular or as useful if not for its built-in support for numerous types of databases.

There are currently many existing database servers or Database Management Systems (DBMS), which function on different platforms. On any operating system, Oracle is generally considered one of the best DBMS, but its price puts it out of the running for all but the largest and best-financed applications. For Windows and Windows NT, you’ll often encounter Access or SQL Server, both of which are fine but not cross-platform compliant.

This chapter will use MySQL as the example DBMS. Although ...

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