MySQL
Database
Service
MySQL is
alleged to be the world's most popular open source
database and the best place to find out about MySQL is
the MySQL
web site.
A
searchable version of the MySQL manual is
available.
The installed
version of MySQL is 5.0.37.
Related
topics
- PHP
includes functions to connect to MySQL. See the PHP
manual for details.
- The
easiest way to administer your MySQL databases is to
use our local copy of PHPMyAdmin. It
requires you to login using a valid
MySQL database name
and password (not your
central systems one that you use to access your
e-mail). If you are accessing this tool from
off-campus, you'll need to use the University's
proxy service to do so.
- Local
users can also take advantage of the MySQLadmin
tool that allows you to create and modify MySQL
databases as well as giving access to MySQL features
not available via PHPMyAdmin (primarily access to the
ALTER command). You must register to have access to
this tool: please complete the online form RF21.
This is the recommended method of creating MySQL
databases (all of which will be named with a prefix
matching your central systems username (eg. abc123_database)).
Once registered, you should use your central
systems username and password to login to it
(ie, the one you use for access to your e-mail, not
any of your MySQL usernames or passwords).
- If you are
familiar with the central UNIX systems, you can use
the MySQL command line interface. Run it (on the
sysa.abdn.ac.uk system) using this command:
/local/bin/mysql/mysql
-h
mysql.abdn.ac.uk -u username -p
where username
is a valid MySQL database name (not
your central systems username that you use for
e-mail); you'll be prompted for the associated
password.
- There are
some Windows-based tools that you can use to manage
your MySQL databases. For example, the MySQL Query
Browser is (to quote) "a graphical tool provided by
MySQL AB for creating, executing, and optimizing
queries in a graphical environment" and can be
downloaded from this
Web
page.
- Some
features of mySQL are not appropriate in our shared
environment and have been disabled; these features
are:
| |
Feature |
Work-around |
| |
LOAD
LOCAL
INFILE
(also the importing of delimited files via
PHPMyAdmin) |
PHP is
available as a command-line tool (on the central
UNIX systems and versions of it can be downloaded
to PCs). PHP's MySQL functions can be used to read
text files and update a MySQL database. On the
central UNIX system (sysa ), try
/local/bin/mysql/delimited-import instead. That
script will read a text file and convert each line
in it to an INSERT statement. It will then run the
INSERTs to load your database. The input file must
be in a format that is acceptable to the INSERT
statement, eg. strings delimited by quotes and
commas separating each field thus:
"aaa","bbb","ccc". |
| |
Direct
access to the ALTER command |
Use
mysqladmin as described above. |
- The MySQL
server is backed up nightly (as are all our central
servers), so if you need more frequent backups of your
database contents, you will have to manage this
yourself (several methods: use a PHP script, use
"SELECT INTO ... OUTFILE", use mysqldump (but not
mysqlimport as this is only an interface to the "load
local infile" feature)).
|
