Sams Teach Yourself MySQL

Understanding Views

A view is a pseudo-table. In SQL, you can reference a view just like you reference a table in a SELECT statement. You can also use some views with INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements.

Views are a tool of convenience. For example, if you find yourself frequently performing the same join, you might find it more convenient to create a view to use in your queries instead.

Creating a View

You create a view with the CREATE VIEW command. The following example creates a simple view—every column from the customer_contacts table is included, but a WHERE clause restricts the rows returned to only those with the given customer_code.

mysql> CREATE VIEW custview AS
    -> SELECT * FROM customer_contacts
    -> WHERE customer_code = 'SCICORP'; ...