Managing and Using MySQL (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

Tim King (Author), George Reese (Author), Randy Yarger (Author), Hugh E. Williams (Author), Randy Jay Yarger (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0596002114 | ISBN-13: 978-0596002114 | Publication Date: April 2002 | Edition: Second Edition

MySQL is a popular and robust open source database product that supports key subsets of SQL on both Linux and Unix systems. MySQL is free for nonprofit use and costs a small amount for commercial use. Unlike commercial databases, MySQL is affordable and easy to use. This book includes introductions to SQL and to relational database theory. If you plan to use MySQL to build web sites or other Linux or Unix applications, this book teaches you to do that, and it will remain useful as a reference once you understand the basics. Ample tutorial material and examples are included throughout.

This book has all you need to take full advantage of this powerful database management system. It takes you through the whole process from installation and configuration to programming interfaces and database administration. This second edition has a greatly enhanced administration chapter that includes information on administrative tools, server configuration, server startup and shutdown, log file management, database backup and restore, and database administration and repair. In addition, a new chapter on security describes data, server, and client-server security, while a chapter on extending MySQL provides an overview of MySQL internals and describes the use of MySQL user-defined functions.

If you know C/C++, Java, Perl, PHP, or Python, you can write programs to interact with your MySQL database. In addition, you can embed queries and updates directly in an HTML file so that a web page becomes its own interface to the database. Managing and Using MySQL includes chapters on the programming language interfaces, and it also includes a complete reference section with specific function calls for each language.

Also included in the reference section are references to the SQL language, and details of the MySQL system variables, programs, and utilities. New to the second edition is a reference to the internal MySQL tables, which will be of particular interest to those who want to work extensively with MySQL security.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tim King has been working with computers since the early 1980s, when he programmed games on his Commodore 64 computer and founded a computer club in his high school. He earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Minnesota Institute of Technology in 1991. While there, he taught Unix and vi classes and was the leader of a rag-tag group of vi devotees called the "VI Zombies." Presently, Tim is a software consultant in San Francisco, CA, specializing in database and web technologies. His favorite activity is snowboarding, but he also enjoys photography and reading. You can reach him at [e-mail]

George Reese has taken an unusual path into business software development. After earning a B.A. in philosophy from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, George went off to Hollywood where he worked on television shows such as "The People's Court" and ESPN's "Up Close". The L.A. riots convinced him to return to Maine where he finally became involved with software development and the Internet. George has since specialized in the development of Internet-oriented Java enterprise systems and the strategic role of technology in business processes. He is the author of Database Programming with JDBC and Java, 2nd Edition and the world's first JDBC driver, the mSQL-JDBC driver for mSQL. He currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife Monique and three cats, Misty, Gypsy, and Tia. He makes a living as the National Practice Director of Technology Strategy for digital@jwt in Minneapolis.

Product Details

• Paperback: 442 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Second Edition edition (April 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596002114
• ISBN-13: 978-0596002114
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #823,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am the President and CEO of Valtira Corporation (http://www.valtira.com) in Minneapolis, MN. Valtira develops a Marketing Dashboard that enables marketing departments to send a consistent message across multiple channels and measure the results. The core of the Simplicis Marketing Dashboard is a content management system, Simplicis CMS.

My professional career began in Hollywood working on TV shows like the People's Court and ESPN Up Close, but my "Internet Career" started in 1991 developing Open Source online gaming software, specifically the Nightmare and Dead Souls mud libraries. I got involved with Java in 1995 and wrote my first book, Database Programming with JDBC and Java in 1996. I spent the Internet bubble writing books and only recently (in 2003) tried my hand and starting my own company with Valtira.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good book covering a lot of topics, September 9, 2002

By 

C. M. Lowry (Columbia JUG, Columbia, SC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Managing and Using MySQL (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

The title is not all together indicative of what the authors try to accomplish in this book. The book attempts to be both a tutorial and a reference for programmers and administrators. The book consists of four major parts. The first part is the Introduction, which contains chapters on MySQL in general, installation on Unix and Windows, SQL for MySQL, and general Database Administration. This is accomplished in less than eighty pages which makes for brief explanations, limited illustrations, and examples. The second part is the MySQL Administration. This part has chapters on Performance Tuning, Security, and Database Design. The third part is MySQL Programming. The chapters' topics include general database applications, Perl, Python, PHP, C API, Java, and extending MySQL. Part four is the MySQL Reference. SQL syntax for MySQL, MySQL data types, Operators and Functions, MySQL PHP API Reference, C Reference, and Python DB-API are the chapter topics included in this part.

The authors do not assume that the reader is knowledgeable about relational databases in general, SQL, or the related topics. For example, the chapter on SQL on MySQL does not just describe the subset of SQL-92 that MySQL supports, but rather it contains a tutorial on the SQL for the commands that MySQL supports. Chapter seven on Database Design contains a tutorial on taking a database to third normal form complete with Entity-Relationship diagrams, unique identifiers and relationships. In part four, the PHP chapter contains a mini-tutorial on PHP and a complete PHP application. While the level of thoroughness is nice in the sense that you do not have to refer to other volumes to comprehend the subject, it makes for some very intense reading because of the size of the book versus the topics covered.

Overall, I like the book as a general tool, however there are certain omissions, for example: there is no reference phpMyAdmin or WinMySQLadmin. These tools are very easy to use and helpful in working with MySQL. In addition, the topic of creating InnoDB or BDB tables for transaction support is not addressed. The explanation of granting privileges in MySQL was a little confusing. Some supporting illustrations or diagrams would be well received there. The book is fairly successful in covering its broad topic domain. In conjunction with the MySQL manual, the book should meet most of my needs, but if I were a full time database administrator, I would probably want a dedicated reference book.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Introduction to MySQL - But Only an Introduction, November 5, 2003

By 

Warren J. Dew (Somerville, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Managing and Using MySQL (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

This book is clearly and succinctly written, and provides an excellent introduction to MySQL. It starts with a few pages on the history and philosophy behind MySQL, which is useful if you want to understand the advantages and disadvantages of MySQL relative to other options such as PostgreSQL or Oracle. It then follows with chapters on installation, with specific instructions for Solaris, Linux, and Windows; on MySQL's dialect of SQL (Structured Query Language); and on basic administration tasks such as configuration, startup and shutdown, logging, backup, and recovery. That's really all you need to get a basic database up and running, and it's all in the first 80 pages of the book.

Part II of the book covers more advanced administrative tasks, with chapters on performance tuning, security, and database design. This section of the book is weaker than the first section; while there's some useful introductory material on each of these topics, depth is lacking. For example, the discussion of putting a database into second normal form is misleading because it uses a table with only one field as the unique identifier, making it impossible to clearly illustrate the removal to a smaller table of fields that are dependent on only part of a (typically multifield) unique identifier. Also, some of the more advanced MySQL features which might be appropriate for this section are omitted.

Part III of the book, entitled "MySQL Programming", has sections accessing MySQL from Perl, Python, PHP, C, Java. These sections are mostly limited to information specific to MySQL that might not be found in general purpose documentation of these languages. For example, the PHP section documents the relevant function calls, since PHP uses different functions to access MySQL than it does to access, say, ODBC databases, while the Java section focuses on JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) driver configuration since the JDBC API is database independent.

Finally, there is a reference section and a good, complete index.

If what you want to do is get a small database up and running in a minimum of time with a minimum of hassle, this is the book for you. If you want more than an introductory level of detail and depth, though, you might look at other books; Leon Atkinson's "Core MySQL", for example, has more complete coverage, though the writing style is not as clear and direct.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Reference But Not Much On Managment, September 17, 2002

By 

J. Whittenburg (Marietta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Managing and Using MySQL (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

This book is an excellent reference book for MySQL. In fact I'd rate it the best MySQL reference out there when using MySQL as a coder. But if your looking for this book to tell you how to manage MySQL look on, this book is not for you! It's pretty weak in that area (as is the official MySQL documentation). But again, as a programmer I've found this book invaluable as a resource and would never be without it. I'd recommend it for novices and advanced users.