Learning Mysql

sufficiently skilled programmer can look at the program code to find and perhaps help in fixing problems.
MySQL actually has a dual-license approach if you want to build your own product around it, you pay MySQL AB a license fee. If you just want to use MySQL to serve your own data, you don’t have to pay the license fee. MySQL also offers technical support, as do numerous other companies and consultants, some of them probably near you.
Easy interface to other software
It is easy to use MySQL as part of a larger software system. For example, you can write programs that can interact directly with a MySQL database. Most major programming languages have libraries of functions for use with MySQL; these include C, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, and the Microsoft NET languages. MySQL also supports the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) standard, making it accessible even when MySQL-specific functionality isn’t available.
Elements of MySQL and Its Environment
You need to master several skills to run a database system. In this section, we’ll layout what goes into using MySQL and how we meet those needs in this book.
A MySQL installation has two components a server that manages the data, and cli-
ents that ask the server to do things with the data, such as change entries or provide reports. The client that you’ll probably use most often is the mysql
“MySQL monitor”
program, provided by the MySQL AB company and available inmost MySQL installations. This allows you to connect to a MySQL server and run SQL queries. Other simple clients are included in atypical installation for example, the mysqladmin program is a client that allows you to perform various server administration tasks.
In fact, any program that knows how to talk to the MySQL server is a client a program fora web-based shopping site or an application to generate sales graphs fora marketing team can both be clients. In Chapter 3, you’ll learn to use the MySQL monitor client to access the MySQL server. In Chapters 13 through 15, we’ll look at how we can use
PHP to write our own custom clients that run on a web server to present a web frontend to the database for this. We’ll use the Apache web server (http://httpd.apache.org).
Apache has along history of reliable service and has been the most popular web server in the world for over 10 years. The Apache web server—or HTTP server project is managed by the Apache Foundation (http://www.apache.org). Although the web server and MySQL server are separate programs and can run on separate computers,
it’s common to find small- to medium-scale implementations that have both running on a single computer. In Chapters 16 through 18, we’ll explore how the Perl programming language can be used to build command-line and web interfaces to the MySQL
server.

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