MySQL Cookbook

The new edition covers MySQL 5.0 and its powerful new features, as well as the older but still widespread MySQL 4.1. One major emphasis of this book is how to use SQL to formulate queries for particular kinds of questions, using the mysql client program included in MySQL distributions. The other major emphasis is how to write programs that interact with the MySQL server through an API. You'll find plenty of examples using several language APIs in multiple scenarios and situations, including the use of Ruby to retrieve and format data. There are also many new examples for using Perl, PHP, Python, and Java as well.

Other recipes in the book teach you to: Access data from multiple tables at the same time Use SQL to select, sort, and summarize rows Find matches or mismatches between rows in two tables Determine intervals between dates or times, including age calculations Store images into MySQL and retrieve them for display in web pages Get LOAD DATA to read your data files properly or find which values in the file are invalid Use strict mode to prevent entry of bad data into your database Copy a table or a database to another server Generate sequence numbers to use as unique row identifiers Create database events that execute according to a schedule And a lot more

"MySQLCookbook" doesn't attempt to develop full-fledged, complex applications. Instead, it's intended to assist you in developing applications yourself by helping you get past problems that have you stumped.

Amazon.com Review
Good programming--which is to say, programming that yields both efficient code and a profitable life for the programmer--depends on not reinventing the wheel. If someone else has solved the problem you're facing (and someone almost always has), you'd be foolish to waste your energy figuring out your own solution. MySQL Cookbook presents solutions to scores of problems related to the MySQL database server. Readers stand a good chance of finding a ready-made solution to problems such as querying databases, validating and formatting data, importing and exporting values, and using advanced features like session tracking and transactions. Paul DuBois has done a great job assembling efficient solutions to common database programming problems, and teaches his readers a lot about MySQL and its attendant APIs in the process.

DuBois organizes his cookbook's recipes into sections on the problem, the solution stated simply, and the solution implemented in code and discussed. The implementation and discussion sections are the most valuable, as they contain the command sequences, code listings, and design explanations that can be transferred to outside projects. The main gripe readers will have about MySQL Cookbook is that the author, in his effort to cover the range of MySQL-friendly programming languages, uses different languages in his solutions to various problems. You'll see a Perl solution to one programming challenge (Perl, in fact, is the most frequently used language, followed by PHP), a Python fix for the next, and a Java sample after that. Readers have to hope that they find a solution in the language they're working with, or that they're able to transliterate the one DuBois has provided. It's usually not a big problem. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to make MySQL databases do your bidding--in terms of queries, table manipulation, data formatting, transactions, and Web interfaces--through the database server's command line interfaces and (more importantly) through the MySQL APIs of Perl, PHP, Java, and Python. Particularly excellent coverage deals with formatting dates and times, management of null values, string manipulation, and import/export techniques.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Quickstart to MySQL Development, 2008-11-13

I really enjoy cookbooks because of their no nonsense organization. This MySQL book exactly fits that description. Chances are just scanning the table of contents you'll find the question you are asking with the answer and explanation at your fingertips.

Nuggets of information I found quickly include: paging producing HTML output with the mysql client, checking and changing a tables storage engine, working with fulltext searches, summary and grouping query examples, importing data from CSV, exporting in various formats, dealing with auto_increment columns, sequences, deletes, gaps, and so on. Also handling duplicates, detecting, eliminating, working with transactions, and a whole lot more.

The book is mainly geared towards web applications and MySQL. The languages that they cover include Perl, Ruby, PHP, Java, Python. If you're using any of those languages for your web application, it is more than likely you want a copy of this book. It's very quick and painless to lookup how to do something, and not have to wade through tons of information that's not relevant to you.

The target audience for this book is really developers not DBAs, so keep that in mind. If you're doing web development in Ruby, PHP, Perl, Python or Java, you should consider this book. It concentrates solely on the how to do specific things, so you won't get weighed down by too much theory and so on. With that in mind, it's not per se a book on performance, testing, benchmarking and profiling applications in those languages, so if that is what you need, you'll require additional material.


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Teasure Trove of MySQL Recipes, 2008-09-27
At 900+ pages this book addresses a lot of common SQL tasks. And that's what a good cookbook should do. Not only does it present the SQL queries in the MySQL dialect, it also covers how to pump those queries through Pearl, Ruby, PHP, Python, and Java APIs.
As an added bonus you can actually use this book to learn SQL. I thought the chapter on JOINS was especially well written.


1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

excellent resource, 2008-04-10
This book is
-a great resource for those looking to implement various mysql functions
-a great resource for database programmers
-a trove of information on powerful query and sort techniques

Finding information about the topic you're looking for is a breeze in this book - the chapters are well-organized, and this book has anwered all questions I've posed to it....

The cookbook is a powerful tool to those who know some mysql, and some dB design. I recommend that you use another book to learn basic mysql (or just an online tutorial), and another to learn database design (Navathe).


3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

True to the Title, 2008-03-11
As indicated, this book is true to its title. It is a cookbook, by which I mean it contains a great number of (generally useful) recipes of varying complexity, but lacks detail and analysis that a more focused text would have.

Mr. DuBois and O'Reilly publishing are clearly targeting a wide audience: the recipes range from frighteningly simple (e.g. 3.1, Specifying Which Columns to Select) to fairly sophisticated (e.g. 12.14, Performing a Join Between Tables in Different Databases). The recipes are typically clearly written, with ample supporting code examples and few typographical errors.

I must also note that Mr. DuBois nicely avoids a pitfall many authors (the competence of whom I have to question) in this genre encounter: failure to weave security considerations into the text. While other books often mention security as an afterthought, or worse include code examples featuring disasters like non-escaped strings (hello, SQL injection!), DuBois explicitly points out the need to sanitize input and writes code examples that demonstrate the use of prepared statements in best-practices.

Unfortunately, in other areas he is less thorough. For example, only passing mention is made of the (possible) dependence of FULLTEXT indexes on choice of storage engine. There is an entire chapter on handling duplicate rows, but the oft-needed (and non-obvious) process for removing pseudo-duplicate rows differing only by a primary key field is not directly addressed. Stored procedures, triggers, and other new additions to MySQL are among the least-well understood but most powerful features of the database engine, yet astonishingly little space is spent on them. (I could understand not discussing them in depth as there are other books available, but length did not seem to be a concern anywhere else in this book.)

In summary, the book is an excellent resource for novices and experts alike - but only as a starting point. To return to the cooking analogy, the book at times feels like it is loaded down with recipes on how to add sugar to flour, but omits recipes on how to ice the cake.


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Useful book, 2007-12-30
This book is useful for anyone looking to find examples of MySQL 4 usage in multiple languages such as PHP, Perl, Java, and Python. It covers many areas that are used in real world applications and is great as a reference material. This book is structured in the Problem/Solution layout of the Oreilly cookbook series.

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