Database
(MySQL) tutorial
Introduction
to relational databases
Relational databases started to get to be a big deal in
the 1970's, and they are still a big deal today. Without databases many
things would become impossible tasks. We also use databases on the
internet.
We are going to learn more about MySQL database which is one of the
fastest and what's more, it's free. SQL stands for Structured Query
Language. If you already have some experience with PHP programming
and would like to use your PHP scripts with MySQL database, you can
download MySQL from here. Find an
FTP mirror. Under
"packages" or "downloads" find "Win32"
folder and the needed file mysql-3.23.36-win.zip (or more recent).
Install and configure MySQL database on your computer, and develop your PHP scripts locally. Of
course, if you want to publish your PHP/MySQL files online, find out if
your host can establish and configure a MySQL account for you. This
tutorial also could be useful for those who already know Perl
programming and would like to use Perl scripts with MySQL database. A
relational database is a bunch of rectangular tables. Each row of
a table is a record about one person or thing. The record
contains several pieces of information called fields. Each field comes
in several forms and sizes - called datatypes. Well, we can
consider the hierarchy of a database as following: Database
-> Table -> Record -> Datatype And here
is an example table:
| FIRSTNAME |
LASTNAME |
AGE |
SEX |
ID |
| John |
Smith |
24 |
M |
19754 |
| Angela |
Power |
29 |
F |
765 |
The names of the fields are FIRSTNAME, LASTNAME, AGE, SEX,
ID. Each row in the table is a record. For example, the first row
of the table represents a 24-year-old male John Smith, whose ID number
is 19754. As you can see, tables are simple and easy to understand. Well,
let's move on to the next section MySQL
datatypes.
|
