|
MySQL is the most popular open source database
server.
What is MySQL
MySQL is a database. A database defines a structure for
storing information.
In a database, there are tables. Just like HTML tables,
database tables contain rows, columns, and cells.
Databases are useful when storing information categorically.
A company may have a database with the following tables:
"Employees", "Products", "Customers" and "Orders".
Database Tables
A database most often contains one or more tables. Each table
has a name (e.g. "Customers" or "Orders"). Each table contains
records (rows) with data.
Below is an example of a table called "Persons":
| LastName |
FirstName |
Address |
City |
| Hansen |
Ola |
Timoteivn 10 |
Sandnes |
| Svendson |
Tove |
Borgvn 23 |
Sandnes |
| Pettersen |
Kari |
Storgt 20 |
Stavanger |
The table above contains three records (one for each person)
and four columns (LastName, FirstName, Address, and City).
Queries
A query is a question or a request.
With MySQL, we can query a database for specific information
and have a recordset returned.
Look at the following query:
SELECT LastName FROM Persons
|
The query above selects all the data in the LastName column
in the Persons table, and will return a recordset like this:
| LastName |
| Hansen |
| Svendson |
| Pettersen |
Download MySQL Database
If you don't have a PHP server with a MySQL Database, you can
download MySQL for free here:
http://www.mysql.com/downloads/index.html
|
