Sams Teach Yourself MySQL in 21 Days, Second Edition

Manipulating Tables

Now that you can use the mysql program and run the commands to create a database, you're ready to build on this knowledge and start manipulating tables.

This section will show you how to create a table, drop a table, view a table's description, and alter a table's column declarations.

Creating a Table

You can create a table using the CREATE TABLE command, whose syntax is as follows:

CREATE [TEMPORARY] TABLE
  [IF NOT EXISTS] table_name
  [(create_definition,...)]
  [table_options] [select_statement]

Before looking at the many options for CREATE TABLE, let's try a simple example. Say that we want to create a database for a content management system called cms, and within it a table called articles. We could use the following, first ...