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BT 0075 RDBMS with MySQL
Contents
Unit 1
Basics of MySQL 1
Unit 2
Data Types 24
Unit 3
Data Definition Language (DDL) 52
Unit 4
Data Manipulation Language (DML) 90
Unit 5
Advanced Data Manipulation Language 114
Unit 6
Subqueries 133
Unit 7
Operators and Functions 153
Unit 8
Advanced Functions 183
Unit 9
Transaction Management 214
Unit 10
Stored Procedures 229
Edition: Spring 2009
BKID B1003 10
th June 2009
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Unit 11
Control Statement 242
Unit 12
User Account Management 253
Unit 13
General Security Issues 281
Unit 14
Log Files 294
References 311
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Prof. S. Kannan Director & Dean (in-charge) Directorate of Distance Education Sikkim Manipal University of Health, Medical & Technological Sciences (SMU DDE)
Board of Studies Dr. U. B. Pavanaja (Chairman) Nirmal Kumar Nigam General Manager Academics HOP IT Manipal Universal Learning Pvt. Ltd. Sikkim Manipal University DDE Bangalore. Manipal. Prof. Bhushan Patwardhan Dr. A. Kumaran Chief Academics Research Manager (Multilingual) Manipal Education Microsoft Research Labs India Bangalore. Bangalore. Dr. Harishchandra Hebbar Ravindranath P. S. Director Director (Quality) Manipal Centre for Info. Sciences, Yahoo India Bangalore Bangalore. Dr. N. V. Subba Reddy Dr. Ashok Kallarakkal HOD-CSE Vice President Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal IBM India, Bangalore Dr. Ashok Hegde H. Hiriyannaiah Vice President Group Manager MindTree Consulting Ltd., Bangalore EDS Mphasis, Bangalore Dr. Ramprasad Varadachar Director, Computer Studies Dayanand Sagar College of Engg. Bangalore.
Content Preparation Team Content Writing Content Editing Mr. Nirmal Kumar Nigam Mr. Vinayak G. Pai Assistant Professor, HoP IT Assistant Professor, Dept. of IT Sikkim Manipal University DDE Sikkim Manipal University DDE Manipal. Manipal. Instructional Design Mr. Kulwinder Pal Senior Lecturer (Education) Sikkim Manipal University DDE, Manipal
Edition: Spring 2009
This book is a distance education module comprising a collection of learning material for our students. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from Sikkim Manipal University of Health, Medical and Technological Sciences, Gangtok, Sikkim. Printed and published on behalf of Sikkim Manipal University of Health, Medical and Technological Sciences, Gangtok, Sikkim by Mr. Rajkumar Mascreen, GM, Manipal Universal Learning Pvt. Ltd., Manipal 576 104. Printed at Manipal Press Limited, Manipal.
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RDBMS with MySQL is a 4 credit subject in third semester of BSc IT
program.
MySQL, the most popular Open Source SQL database management
system, is developed, distributed, and supported by MySQL AB.
Open Source means that it is possible for anyone to use and modify the
software. Anybody can download the MySQL software from the Internet and
use it without paying anything. If you wish, you may study the source code
and change it to suit your needs. The MySQL software uses the GPL (GNU
General Public License), http://www.fsf.org/licenses/, to define what you
may and may not do with the software in different situations.
The MySQL Database Server is very fast, reliable, and easy to use. MySQL
Server works in client/server or embedded systems.
MySQL is named after co-founder Monty Widenius's daughter, My.
In this book on MySQL, we would lay the emphasis on the applications of
MySQL in solving the database related problems and also deal with the
coverage of every aspect related to MySQL.
The SLM of this subject is divided into 14 units, the overview of which is
given below.
Unit 1 Basics of MySQL:
This unit introduces the user to the basic theoretical concepts and features
behind MySQL.
Unit 2 MySQL Data Types:
This unit introduces the theoretical and practical aspects of dealing with
various data types of MySQL database, their syntax, usage and applications
in the real world.
Unit 3 Data Definition Language (DDL):
This unit starts with an introduction of Data Definition Language Statements
used in MySQL. It describes the syntaxes of creating and modifying
Databases, Indexes and Tables.
SUBJECT INTRODUCTION
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Unit 4 Data Manipulation Language (DML):
The Data Manipulation Language or DML statements are used to
manipulate the data inside a database. This unit introduces various DML
Statements built into MySQL.
Unit 5 Advanced Data Manipulation Language:
This unit deals with the advanced DML Statements which is an extension of
unit 4. It deals with Join and Union operations used to join database objects
like tables. It also deals with various other operations of truncating the data,
Updating or Modifying the existing data. It speaks about the specific
operator Do, Handler and Replace.
Unit 6 Subqueries:
This unit deals with subqueries. A subquery is a query written within a query
where in the result processing is segregated among the inner and outer
queries.
Unit 7 Operators and Functions:
This unit introduces the reader with all varieties of operators used in both
SQL and also in case of Functions and procedures used along with them.
Unit 8 Advanced Functions:
This unit deals in detail with the next level of functions used in addition to
the functions discussed in the previous unit. It discusses regarding the Full
text search functions, Cast Functions Encryption Functions, and the usage
of Group By clause with various functions, and modifiers.
Unit 9 Transaction Management:
A Transaction is a series of one or more SQL Statements that are logically
related or a series of operations performed on table data. This unit
introduces to the reader with various statements used in MySQL to treat
with Transactions like Starting Transactions, making the output of the
transaction permanent by using Commit Statements.
Unit 10 Stored Procedures
A stored procedure is a set of SQL commands that can be stored in the
server. This unit discusses the commands used to create, alter, and Drop
procedures and / or functions.
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Unit 11 Control Statements:
This unit deals with various flow control constructs used in case of stored
procedures or functions.
Unit 12 User Account Management:
This section describes how to set up accounts for clients of your MySQL
server. The meaning of account names and passwords as used in MySQL
and how that compares to names and passwords used by your operating
system is discussed.
Unit 13 General Security Issues:
This unit describes some general security issues to be aware of and what
you can do to make your MySQL installation more secure against attack or
misuse. It also describes the methods to maintain security while transferring
data into MySQL from external resources
Unit 14 Log Files:
This unit describes the importance of maintaining log files within MySQL. It
describes various types of log files maintained in MySQL like Error, General
Query, Binary, etc.
Objectives of studying this subject
After studying this subject, you should be able to:
discuss the features and use MySQL for database applications
define and use the appropriate data types in your applications
Describe the syntaxes of DML Statements and use them appropriately
Define and explain the syntaxes of DDL statements
explain the usage of subqueries as applicable
Describe the usage of various available operators and functions
Discuss the concepts of Transaction Management
describe the usage of Stored Procedures and functions in conjunction
with flow control statements
Explain the importance of User Account Management
Define general security guidelines in the usage of database servers
Describe the need of maintaining different types of log files
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The subject demands knowledge and understanding of the subject titled
Database Management Systems bearing the subject code BT0066 of
BSc IT First Semester with respect to both the theoretical and practical
concepts.
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RDBMS with MySQL Unit 1
Sikkim Manipal University Page No. 1
Unit 1 Basics of MySQL Structure
1.1 Introduction
Objectives
1.2 Features of MySQL
1.3 Top 10 Reasons to use MySQL
1.4 MySQL Development Roadmap
1.5 Connecting to and Disconnecting from the Server
1.6 Accessing and Creating Databases and Tables
1.7 Loading Data
1.8 Summary
1.9 Terminal Questions
1.10 Answers
1.1 Introduction
MySQL, the most popular Open Source SQL database management
system, is developed, distributed, and supported by MySQL AB. MySQL AB
is a commercial company, founded by the MySQL developers. It is a second
generation Open Source company that unites Open Source values and
methodology with a successful business model.
The MySQL Web site (http://www.mysql.com/) provides the latest
information about MySQL software and MySQL AB.
MySQL is a Database Management System
A database is a structured collection of data. It may be anything from a
simple shopping list to a picture gallery or the vast amounts of
information in a corporate network. To add, access, and process data
stored in a computer database, you need a database management
system such as MySQL Server.
MySQL is a Relational Database Management System
A Relational Database stores data in separate tables rather than putting
all the data in one big storeroom. This adds speed and flexibility.
MySQL software is Open Source
Open Source means that it is possible for anyone to use and modify the
software. Anybody can download the MySQL software from the Internet
and use it without paying anything. If you wish, you may study the
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source code and change it to suit your needs. The MySQL
software uses the GPL (GNU General Public License),
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/, to define what you may and may not do with
the software in different situations. If you feel uncomfortable with the
GPL or need to embed MySQL code into a commercial application, you
can buy a commercially licensed version from us.
The MySQL Database Server is very fast, reliable, and easy to use.
MySQL Server works in client/server or embedded systems.
The MySQL Database Software is a client/server system that consists of
a multi-threaded SQL server that supports different backends, several
different client programs and libraries, administrative tools, and a wide
range of application programming interfaces (APIs).
A large amount of contributed MySQL software is available.
It is very likely that your favorite application or language supports the
MySQL Database Server.
The official way to pronounce MySQL is My Ess Que Ell (not my
sequel), but we don't mind if you pronounce it as my sequel or in
some other localized way.
In this unit, we would be dealing with the features of MySQL followed by
the development roadmap and the steps in starting and stopping the
MySQL server. In addition, we will be dealing with the commands used
to create and access databases and tables in the database server.
Objectives
After studying this unit, you should be able to:
explain the features of MySQL
describe the process of connecting to and disconnecting from MySQL
server
explain the operations of accessing and creating databases and tables
using MySQL
discuss the steps in Loading data from external data sources
1.2 Features of MySQL
This section describes some of the important characteristics of the MySQL
Database Software.
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Internals and Portability:
Written in C and C++.
Tested with a broad range of different compilers.
Works on many different platforms.
Uses GNU Automake, Autoconf, and Libtool for portability.
The MySQL Server design is multi-layered with independent modules.
Fully multi-threaded using kernel threads. It can easily use multiple
CPUs if they are available.
Provides transactional and non-transactional storage engines.
Uses very fast B-tree disk tables (MyISAM) with index compression.
Relatively easy to add other storage engines. This is useful if you want
to provide an SQL interface for an in-house database.
A very fast thread-based memory allocation system.
Very fast joins using an optimized one-sweep multi-join.
In-memory hash tables, which are used as temporary tables.
SQL functions are implemented using a highly optimized class library
and should be as fast as possible. Usually there is no memory allocation
at all after query initialization.
The MySQL code is tested with Purify (a commercial memory leakage
detector) as well as with Valgrind, a GPL tool
(http://developer.kde.org/~sewardj/).
The server is available as a separate program for use in a client/server
networked environment. It is also available as a library that can be
embedded (linked) into standalone applications. Such applications can
be used in isolation or in environments where no network is available.
Data Types:
Supports the following data types: signed/unsigned integers 1, 2, 3, 4,
and 8 bytes long, FLOAT, DOUBLE, CHAR, VARCHAR, TEXT, BLOB,
DATE, TIME, DATETIME, TIMESTAMP, YEAR, SET, ENUM, and
OpenGIS spatial types.
Fixed-length and variable-length records.
Statements and Functions:
Full operator and function support in the SELECT list and WHERE
clause of queries. For example:
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Full support for SQL GROUP BY and ORDER BY clauses. Support for
group functions (COUNT(), COUNT(DISTINCT ...), AVG(), STD(),
SUM(), MAX(), MIN(), and GROUP_CONCAT()).
Support for LEFT OUTER JOIN and RIGHT OUTER JOIN with both
standard SQL and ODBC syntax.
Support for aliases on tables and columns as required by standard SQL.
DELETE, INSERT, REPLACE, and UPDATE return the number of rows
that were changed (affected). It is possible to return the number of rows
matched instead by setting a flag when connecting to the server.
The MySQL-specific SHOW statement can be used to retrieve
information about databases, storage engines, tables, and indexes.
MySQL 5.0 adds support for the INFORMATION_SCHEMA database,
implemented according to standard SQL.
The EXPLAIN statement can be used to determine how the optimizer
resolves a query.
Function names do not clash with table or column names. For example,
ABS is a valid column name. The only restriction is that for a function
call, no spaces are allowed between the function name and the ( that
follows it.
You can refer to tables from different databases in the same statement.
Security:
A privilege and password system that is very flexible and secure, and
that allows host-based verification.
Passwords are secure because all password traffic is encrypted when
you connect to a server.
Scalability and Limits:
Handles large databases. We use MySQL Server with databases that
contain 50 million records. We also know of users who use MySQL
Server with 60,000 tables and about 5,000,000,000 rows.
Up to 64 indexes per table are allowed (32 before MySQL 4.1.2). Each
index may consist of 1 to 16 columns or parts of columns. The maximum
mysql> SELECT CONCAT(first_name, ' ', last_name) -> FROM citizen -> WHERE income/dependents > 10000 AND age > 30;
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index width is 1000 bytes (767 for InnoDB); before MySQL 4.1.2, the
limit is 500 bytes. An index may use a prefix of a column for CHAR,
VARCHAR, BLOB, or TEXT column types.
Connectivity:
Clients can connect to MySQL Server using several protocols:
Clients can connect using TCP/IP sockets on any platform.
On Windows systems in the NT family (NT, 2000, XP, 2003, or
Vista), clients can connect using named pipes if the server is started
with the enable-named-pipe option. In MySQL 4.1 and higher,
Windows servers also support shared-memory connections if started
with the shared-memory option. Clients can connect through
shared memory by using the protocol=memory option.
On Unix systems, clients can connect using Unix domain socket
files.
MySQL client programs can be written in many languages. A client
library written in C is available for clients written in C or C++, or for any
language that provides C bindings.
APIs for C, C++, Eiffel, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl are
available, allowing MySQL clients to be written in many languages.
The Connector/ODBC (MyODBC) interface provides MySQL support for
client programs that use ODBC (Open Database Connectivity)
connections. For example, you can use MS Access to connect to your
MySQL server. Clients can be run on Windows or Unix. MyODBC
source is available. All ODBC 2.5 functions are supported, as are many
others.
The Connector/J interface provides MySQL support for Java client
programs that use JDBC connections. Clients can be run on Windows or
Unix. Connector/J source is available.
MySQL Connector/NET enables developers to easily create .NET
applications that require secure, high-performance data connectivity with
MySQL. It implements the required ADO.NET interfaces and integrates
into ADO.NET aware tools. Developers can build applications using their
choice of .NET languages. MySQL Connector/NET is a fully managed
ADO.NET driver written in 100% pure C#.
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Localization:
The server can provide error messages to clients in many languages.
Full support for several different character sets, including latin1
(cp1252), german, big5, ujis, and more. For example, the Scandinavian
characters , and are allowed in table and column names.
Unicode support is available as of MySQL 4.1.
All data is saved in the chosen character set.
Sorting and comparisons are done according to the chosen character
set and collation (using latin1 and Swedish collation by default). It is
possible to change this when the MySQL server is started. To see an
example of very advanced sorting, look at the Czech sorting code.
MySQL Server supports many different character sets that can be
specified at compile time and runtime.
As of MySQL 4.1, the server time zone can be changed dynamically,
and individual clients can specify their own time zone.
Clients and Tools:
MySQL AB provides several client and utility programs. These include
both command-line programs such as mysqldump and mysqladmin,
and graphical programs such as MySQL Administrator and MySQL
Query Browser.
MySQL Server has built-in support for SQL statements to check,
optimize, and repair tables. These statements are available from the
command line through the mysqlcheck client. MySQL also includes
myisamchk, a very fast command-line utility for performing these
operations on MyISAM tables.
MySQL programs can be invoked with the --help or -? option to obtain
online assistance.
Self Assessment Questions
1. MySQL is a _______________ .
2. The _______ is a privileged and Password system that is very flexible
and secure, and that allows host-based verification.
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1.3 Top 10 reasons to use MySQL
1. Scalability and Flexibility
The MySQL database server provides the ultimate in scalability, sporting
the capacity to handle deeply embedded applications with a footprint of
only 1MB to running massive data warehouses holding terabytes of
information. Platform flexibility is a stalwart feature of MySQL with all
flavors of Linux, UNIX, and Windows being supported. And, of course,
the open source nature of MySQL allows complete customization for
those wanting to add unique requirements to the database server.
2. High Performance
A unique storage-engine architecture allows database professionals to
configure the MySQL database server specifically for particular
applications, with the end result being amazing performance results.
Whether the intended application is a high-speed transactional
processing system or a high-volume web site that services a billion
queries a day, MySQL can meet the most demanding performance
expectations of any system. With high-speed load utilities, distinctive
memory caches, full text indexes, and other performance-enhancing
mechanisms, MySQL offers all the right ammunition for today's critical
business systems.
3. High Availability
Rock-solid reliability and constant availability are hallmarks of MySQL,
with customers relying on MySQL to guarantee around-the-clock uptime.
MySQL offers a variety of high-availability options from high-speed
master/slave replication configurations, to specialized Cluster servers
offering instant failover, to third party vendors offering unique high-
availability solutions for the MySQL database server.
4. Robust Transactional Support
MySQL offers one of the most powerful transactional database engines
on the market. Features include complete ACID (atomic, consistent,
isolated, durable) transaction support, unlimited row-level locking,
distributed transaction capability, and multi-version transaction support
where readers never block writers and vice-versa. Full data integrity is
also assured through server-enforced referential integrity, specialized
transaction isolation levels, and instant deadlock detection.
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5. Web and Data Warehouse Strengths
MySQL is the de-facto standard for high-traffic web sites because of its
high-performance query engine, tremendously fast data insert capability,
and strong support for specialized web functions like fast full text
searches. These same strengths also apply to data warehousing
environments where MySQL scales up into the terabyte range for either
single servers or scale-out architectures. Other features like main
memory tables, B-tree and hash indexes, and compressed archive
tables that reduce storage requirements by up to eighty-percent make
MySQL a strong standout for both web and business intelligence
applications.
6. Strong Data Protection
Because guarding the data assets of corporations is the number one job
of database professionals, MySQL offers exceptional security features
that ensure absolute data protection. In terms of database
authentication, MySQL provides powerful mechanisms for ensuring only
authorized users have entry to the database server, with the ability to
block users down to the client machine level being possible. SSH and
SSL support are also provided to ensure safe and secure connections. A
granular object privilege framework is present so that users only see the
data they should, and powerful data encryption and decryption functions
ensure that sensitive data is protected from unauthorized viewing.
Finally, backup and recovery utilities provided through MySQL and third
party software vendors allow for complete logical and physical backup
as well as full and point-in-time recovery.
7. Comprehensive Application Development
One of the reasons MySQL is the world's most popular open source
database is that it provides comprehensive support for every application
development need. Within the database, support can be found for stored
procedures, triggers, functions, views, cursors, ANSI-standard SQL, and
more. For embedded applications, plug-in libraries are available to
embed MySQL database support into nearly any application. MySQL
also provides connectors and drivers (ODBC, JDBC, etc.) that allow all
forms of applications to make use of MySQL as a preferred data
management server. It doesn't matter if it's PHP, Perl, Java, Visual
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Basic, or .NET, MySQL offers application developers everything they
need to be successful in building database-driven information systems.
8. Management Ease
MySQL offers exceptional quick-start capability with the average time
from software download to installation completion being less than fifteen
minutes. This rule holds true whether the platform is Microsoft Windows,
Linux, Macintosh, or UNIX. Once installed, self-management features
like automatic space expansion, auto-restart, and dynamic configuration
changes take much of the burden off already overworked database
administrators. MySQL also provides a complete suite of graphical
management and migration tools that allow a DBA to manage,
troubleshoot, and control the operation of many MySQL servers from a
single workstation. Many third party software vendor tools are also
available for MySQL that handle tasks ranging from data design and
ETL, to complete database administration, job management, and
performance monitoring.
9. Open Source Freedom and 24 x 7 Support
Many corporations are hesitant to fully commit to open source software
because they believe they can't get the type of support or professional
service safety nets they currently rely on with proprietary software to
ensure the overall success of their key applications. The questions of
indemnification come up often as well. These worries can be put to rest
with MySQL as complete around-the-clock support as well as
indemnification is available through MySQL Network. MySQL is not a
typical open source project as all the software is owned and supported
by MySQL AB, and because of this, a unique cost and support model
are available that provides a unique combination of open source
freedom and trusted software with support.
10. Lowest Total Cost of Ownership
By migrating current database-drive applications to MySQL, or using
MySQL for new development projects, corporations are realizing cost
savings that many times stretch into seven figures. Accomplished
through the use of the MySQL database server and scale-out
architectures that utilize low-cost commodity hardware, corporations are
finding that they can achieve amazing levels of scalability and
performance, all at a cost that is far less than those offered by
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proprietary and scale-up software vendors. In addition, the reliability and
easy maintainability of MySQL means that database administrators don't
waste time troubleshooting performance or downtime issues, but instead
can concentrate on making a positive impact on higher level tasks that
involve the business side of data.
1.4 MySQL Development Roadmap
This section describes the general MySQL development roadmap, provides
an overview about features that have been implemented in previous series
and that are new in this current release series (5.1), and an overview about
upcoming additions or changes in the next release series (6.0).
The maturity level of the release series covered in this manual (5.1) is
general availability.
The most requested features and the versions in which they were
implemented or are scheduled for implementation are summarized in the
following table:
Feature MySQL Series
Unions 4.0
Subqueries 4.1
R-trees 4.1 (for the MyISAM storage
engine)
Stored procedures 5.0
Views 5.0
Cursors 5.0
XA transactions 5.0
Triggers 5.0 and 5.1
Event scheduler 5.1
Partitioning 5.1
Pluggable storage engine API 5.1
Plugin API 5.1
Row-based replication 5.1
Server log tables 5.1
Foreign keys 6.x (implemented in 3.23 for
InnoDB)
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Whats New in MySQL 5.1 ?
The following features have been added to MySQL 5.1.
Partitioning. This capability enables distributing portions of individual
tables across a file system, according to rules which can be set when
the table is created. In effect, different portions of a table are stored as
separate tables in different locations, but from the user point of view, the
partitioned table is still a single table. Syntactically, this implements a
number of new extensions to the CREATE TABLE, ALTER TABLE, and
EXPLAIN ... SELECT statements. As of MySQL 5.1.6, queries against
partitioned tables can take advantage of partition pruning. In some
cases, this can result in query execution that is an order of magnitude
faster than the same query against a non-partitioned version of the
same table.
Row-Based Replication. Replication capabilities in MySQL originally
were based on propagation of SQL statements from master to slave.
This is called statement-based replication. As of MySQL 5.1.5, another
basis for replication is available. This is called row-based replication.
Instead of sending SQL statements to the slave, the master writes
events to its binary log that indicate how individual table rows are
effected. As of MySQL 5.1.8, a third option is available: mixed. This will
use statement-based replication by default, and only switch to row-
based replication in particular cases.
Plugin API. MySQL 5.1 adds support for a very flexible plugin API that
enables loading and unloading of various components at runtime,
without restarting the server. Although the work on this is not finished
yet, plugin full-text parsers are a first step in this direction. This allows
users to implement their own input filter on the indexed text, enabling
full-text search capability on arbitrary data such as PDF files or other
document formats. A pre-parser full-text plugin performs the actual
parsing and extraction of the text and hands it over to the built-in MySQL
full-text search.
Event Scheduler. MySQL Events are tasks that run according to a
schedule. When you create an event, you are creating a named
database object containing one or more SQL statements to be executed
at one or more regular intervals, beginning and ending at a specific date
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and time. Conceptually, this is similar to the idea of the Unix crontab
(also known as a cron job) or the Windows Task Scheduler.
Server Log Tables. Before MySQL 5.1, the server writes general query
log and slow query log entries to log files. As of MySQL 5.1, the server's
logging capabilities for these logs are more flexible. Log entries can be
written to log files (as before) or to the general_log and slow_log tables
in the mysql database. If logging is enabled, either or both destinations
can be selected. The --log-output option controls the destination or
destinations of log output.
Upgrade Program. The mysql_upgrade program (available as of
MySQL 5.1.7) checks all existing tables for incompatibilities with the
current version of MySQL Server and repairs them if necessary. This
program should be run for each MySQL upgrade.
MySQL Cluster. MySQL Cluster is now released as a separate
product, based on MySQL 5.1 but with the addition of the
NDBCLUSTER storage engine. Clustering support is longer available in
mainline MySQL 5.1 releases. MySQL Cluster releases are identified by
a 3-part NDB version number; currently, the MySQL Cluster NDB 6.2
and MySQL Cluster NDB 6.3 release series are available for production
use.
Self Assessment Questions
3. The number of indexes allowed per table in MySQL are _______.
1.5 Connecting to and Disconnecting from the Server
To connect to the server, you will usually need to provide a MySQL user
name when you invoke mysql and, most likely, a password. If the server
runs on a machine other than the one where you log in, you will also need to
specify a host name. Contact your administrator to find out what connection
parameters you should use to connect (that is, what host, user name, and
password to use). Once you know the proper parameters, you should be
able to connect like this:
shell> mysql -h host -u user -p Enter password: ********
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host and user represent the host name where your MySQL server is
running and the user name of your MySQL account. Substitute appropriate
values for your setup. The ******** represents your password; enter it when
mysql displays the Enter password: prompt.
If that works, you should see some introductory information followed by a
mysql> prompt:
The mysql> prompt tells you that mysql is ready for you to enter
commands.
If you are logging in on the same machine that MySQL is running on, you
can omit the host, and simply use the following:
If, when you attempt to log in, you get an error message such as ERROR
2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket
'/tmp/mysql.sock' (2), it means that that MySQL server daemon (Unix) or
service (Windows) is not running. Consult the administrator
Some MySQL installations allow users to connect as the anonymous
(unnamed) user to the server running on the local host. If this is the case on
your machine, you should be able to connect to that server by invoking
mysql without any options:
After you have connected successfully, you can disconnect any time by
typing QUIT (or \q) at the mysql> prompt:
shell> mysql -h host -u user -p Enter password: ******** Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 25338 to server version: 5.1.30-standard Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer. mysql>
shell> mysql -u user -p
shell> mysql
mysql> QUIT Bye
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Most examples in the following sections assume that you are connected to
the server. They indicate this by the mysql> prompt.
1.6 Accessing and Creating Databases and Tables
The following screen shots demonstrate a step-by-step approach in
connecting to the MySQL database server using a specific user name and
password as created during the installation steps.
User is asked for the password before logging in.
User enters the password.
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The following screen shot shows the appearance of mysql> prompt after the
user types in the correct password.
The following screen shot demonstrates the usage of Show Databases
command which shows all the available databases in the MySQL Server.
The following screen shot shows an error message wherein the user tries to
access a table without using any database; i.e. as s first step, the user must
select a database already present by using the USE
command and then access the tables, views or any other data structures
within the database.
Other wise the error message Error 1046: No database Selected would be
generated by the database server.
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The screen shot below shows the command Create Database used to create a database by the user.
After successful execution of the above command, the user can type in the
Show Databases command to find out the successful creation of the
database created by him / her. Then the user can start creating his data
objects like tables inside the database.
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The following screenshot shows how the user can select his own database
created in the previous step and start creating tables using Create Table
command. The DESC command can be used to show the metadata
regarding the table created.
1.7 Loading Data
The following screen shots shows the step-by-step execution of the process
of loading data from a notepad (.txt file) into the MySQL server database
table.
It demonstrates from the first step of creating a notepad file to the stage of
loading and checking the data in your database table.
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Step 1: Opening a Notepad file from the Start menu of the Windows OS
Step 2: The data should be tab separated and the number of columns
correpsond to the number of columns of the base table. The data typed in
the notepad file should correspond to the data type set in the underlying
table.
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Step - 3: Saving in the notepad in the C drive of your hard disk.
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Step 4: Creation of the underlying base table to which the data values
should be populated from the notepad file created in the C drive of your hard
disk.
In this process we use the LOAD DATA INFILE C:\FileName.txt
command which enables us to load the data into the specified database
table.
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1.8 Summary
This unit has covered the following topics:
1. Features of MySQL: Some of the major features discussed here are
Internals and Portability, Data Type support, Security Issues, etc.
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2. Top Reasons for using MySQL: The top 10 reasons for using MySQL
by majority of the user community are discussed here like Scalability &
Flexibility, High Performance, Robust Transactional support, Web and
Data Warehouse strengths, Stronger data protection, etc.
3. MySQL Development Roadmap: This topic provides an overview
about features that have been implemented in previous series and that
are new in this current release series (5.1), and an overview about
upcoming additions or changes in the next release series (6.0).
4. Connecting to and Disconnecting from the Server: This section
discusses about the syntax used to connect to the database server and
disconnect from the database server using command line interface.
5. Accessing and Creating Databases and Tables: This topic discusses
various methods and functions used to access and create databases
and tables within the MySQL server database.
6. Loading Data: This topic discusses about the methods of loading data
into the MySQL database tables from external files such as notepad
data.
1.9 Terminal Questions
1. Mention 4 features of MySQL.
2. Write the syntax used to connect to MySQL server.
3. Give the syntax of Loading the data from a Notepad file into a table.
1.10 Answers
Self Assessment Questions
1. Relational Database Management System
2. Security
3. 64
Terminal Questions
1. 1. Portability
2. Fast Thread based Memory Allocation System
3. Full operator and Functional Support
4. Support for Group By and Order By Clauses
(Refer to section 1.2)
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2. shell> mysql -h host -u user -p
Enter password: ********
(Refer to section 1.5)
3. LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE C:\empdata.txt INTO TABLE emp1;
(Refer to section 1.7)
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Unit 2 Data Types
Structure
2.1 Introduction
Objectives
2.2 Numeric Types
2.3 String Types
The CHAR and VARCHAR Types
The BLOB and TEXT Types
The ENUM Type
The SET Type
2.4 Date and Time Types
The DATETIME, DATE, and TIMESTAMP Types
The TIME Type
The YEAR Type
Y2K Issues and Date Types
2.5 Column Type Storage Requirements
2.6 Choosing the Right Type for a Column
2.7 Using Column Types from Other Database Engines
2.8 Summary
2.9 Terminal Questions
2.10 Answers
2.1 Introduction
In this unit the information regarding the data types uses in MySQL is
presented. An exhaustive discussion regarding the Numeric data types is
made with suitable examples is given. The String data type is used to
manipulate strings and characters; In this regards the data types such as
CHAR, VARCHAR, BLOB, and so on are discussed.
The Date and Time data types are also discussed.
In addition, the column storage requirements of different data types are
mentioned, so that the user can choose the right column types for his
database.
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Objectives
After studying this unit, you should be able to:
describe the importance of data types
apply the Numeric, String and Date & Time data types
describe the column storage requirements in MySQL
explain how to choose a right column type for individual columns
describe how to use column types from other database engines
2.2 Numeric Types
MySQL supports a number of data types in several categories: numeric
types, date and time types, and string (character) types. This chapter first
gives an overview of these data types, and then provides a more detailed
description of the properties of the types in each category, and a summary
of the data type storage requirements.
MySQL also supports extensions for handing spatial data.
Data type descriptions use these conventions:
M indicates the maximum display width for integer types. For floating-
point and fixed-point types, M is the total number of digits that can be
stored. For string types, M is the maximum length. The maximum
allowable value of M depends on the data type.
D applies to floating-point and fixed-point types and indicates the
number of digits following the decimal point. The maximum possible
value is 30, but should be no greater than M2.
Square brackets ([ and ]) indicate optional parts of type definitions.
M indicates the maximum display width for integer types. The maximum
legal display width is 255. Display width is unrelated to the range of values a
type can contain.
For floating-point and fixed-point types, M is the total number of digits that
can be stored.
If you specify ZEROFILL for a numeric column, MySQL automatically adds
the UNSIGNED attribute to the column.
Numeric data types that allow the UNSIGNED attribute also allow SIGNED.
However, these data types are signed by default, so the SIGNED attribute
has no effect.
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SERIAL is an alias for BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT
UNIQUE.
SERIAL DEFAULT VALUE in the definition of an integer column is an alias
for NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT UNIQUE.
BIT[(M)]: A bit-field type. M indicates the number of bits per value, from
1 to 64. The default is 1 if M is omitted.
TINYINT[(M)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]: A very small integer. The
signed range is -128 to 127. The unsigned range is 0 to 255.
BOOL, BOOLEAN: These types are synonyms for TINYINT(1). A value
of zero is considered false. Non-zero values are considered true:
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However, the values TRUE and FALSE are merely aliases for 1 and 0,
respectively, as shown here:
The last two statements display the results shown because 2 is equal to
neither 1 nor 0.
We intend to implement full boolean type handling, in accordance with
standard SQL, in a future MySQL release.
SMALLINT[(M)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]: A small integer. The signed
range is -32768 to 32767. The unsigned range is 0 to 65535.
MEDIUMINT[(M)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]: A medium-sized integer.
The signed range is -8388608 to 8388607. The unsigned range is 0 to
16777215.
INT[(M)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]: A normal-size integer. The signed
range is -2147483648 to 2147483647. The unsigned range is 0 to
4294967295.
INTEGER[(M)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]: This type is a synonym for
INT.
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BIGINT[(M)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]: A large integer. The signed
range is 9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807. The
unsigned range is 0 to
18446744073709551615.
SERIAL is an alias for BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT
UNIQUE.
Some things you should be aware of with respect to BIGINT columns:
All arithmetic is done using signed BIGINT or DOUBLE values, so you
should not use unsigned big integers larger than 9223372036854775807
(63 bits) except with bit functions! If you do that, some of the last digits in the
result may be wrong because of rounding errors when converting a BIGINT
value to a DOUBLE.
You can always store an exact integer value in a BIGINT column by
storing it using a string. In this case, MySQL performs a string-to-number
conversion that involves no intermediate double-precision
representation.
The -, +, and * operators use BIGINT arithmetic when both operands are
integer values. This means that if you multiply two big integers (or
results from functions that return integers), you may get unexpected
results when the result is larger than 9223372036854775807.
FLOAT [(M,D)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]: A small (single-precision)
floating-point number. Allowable values are -3.402823466E+38 to -
1.175494351E-38, 0, and
1.175494351E-38 to 3.402823466E+38.
These are the theoretical limits, based on the IEEE standard. The actual
range might be slightly smaller depending on your hardware or operating
system.
M is the total number of digits and D is the number of digits following the
decimal point. If M and D are omitted, values are stored to the limits allowed
by the hardware. A single-precision floating-point number is accurate to
approximately 7 decimal places.
UNSIGNED, if specified, disallows negative values.
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Note: Using FLOAT might give you some unexpected problems because all
calculations in MySQL are done with double precision.
DOUBLE [(M,D)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]:
A normal - size (double-precision) floating-point number.
Allowable values are -1.7976931348623157E+308 to -
2.2250738585072014E-308, 0, and 2.2250738585072014E-308 to
1.7976931348623157E+308.
These are the theoretical limits, based on the IEEE standard. The actual
range might be slightly smaller depending on your hardware or operating
system.
M is the total number of digits and D is the number of digits following the
decimal point. If M and D are omitted, values are stored to the limits allowed
by the hardware. A double-precision floating-point number is accurate to
approximately 15 decimal places.
UNSIGNED, if specified, disallows negative values.
DOUBLE PRECISION [(M,D)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL], REAL[(M,D)]
[UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]: These types are synonyms for DOUBLE.
Exception: If the REAL_AS_FLOAT SQL mode is enabled, REAL is a
synonym for FLOAT rather than DOUBLE.
FLOAT(p) [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]: A floating - point number. p
represents the precision in bits, but MySQL uses this value only to
determine whether to use FLOAT or DOUBLE for the resulting data type. If
p is from 0 to 24, the data type becomes FLOAT with no M or D values. If p
is from 25 to 53, the data type becomes DOUBLE with no M or D values.
The range of the resulting column is the same as for the single-precision
FLOAT or double-precision DOUBLE data types described earlier in this
section.
Note: FLOAT(p) syntax is provided for ODBC compatibility.
DECIMAL [(M[,D])] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]: A packed exact fixed-point
number. M is the total number of digits (the precision) and D is the number
of digits after the decimal point (the scale). The decimal point and (for
negative numbers) the - sign are not counted in M. If D is 0, values have
no decimal point or fractional part. The maximum number of digits (M) for
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DECIMAL is 65. The maximum number of supported decimals (D) is 30. If D
is omitted, the default is 0. If M is omitted, the default is 10.
UNSIGNED, if specified, disallows negative values.
All basic calculations (+, -, *, /) with DECIMAL columns are done with a
precision of 65 digits.
DEC[(M[,D])] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL], NUMERIC[(M[,D])] [UNSIGNED]
[ZEROFILL], FIXED[(M[,D])] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]:
These types are synonyms for DECIMAL. The FIXED synonym is available
for compatibility with other database systems.
2.3 String Types
The string types are CHAR, VARCHAR, BINARY, VARBINARY, BLOB,
TEXT, ENUM, and SET. This section describes how these types work and
how to use them in your queries.
2.3.1 The CHAR and VARCHAR Types
The CHAR and VARCHAR types are similar, but differ in the way they are
stored and retrieved. They also differ in maximum length and in whether
trailing spaces are retained.
The CHAR and VARCHAR types are declared with a length that indicates
the maximum number of characters you want to store. For example,
CHAR(30) can hold up to 30 characters.
The length of a CHAR column is fixed to the length that you declare when
you create the table. The length can be any value from 0 to 255. When
CHAR values are stored, they are right-padded with spaces to the specified
length. When CHAR values are retrieved, trailing spaces are removed
unless the PAD_CHAR_TO_FULL_LENGTH SQL mode is enabled.
Values in VARCHAR columns are variable-length strings. The length can be
specified as a value from 0 to 65,535. The effective maximum length of a
VARCHAR is subject to the maximum row size (65,535 bytes, which is
shared among all columns) and the character set used.
In contrast to CHAR, VARCHAR values are stored as a one-byte or two-
byte length prefix plus data. The length prefix indicates the number of bytes
in the value. A column uses one length byte if values require no more than
255 bytes, two length bytes if values may require more than 255 bytes.
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If strict SQL mode is not enabled and you assign a value to a CHAR or
VARCHAR column that exceeds the column's maximum length, the value is
truncated to fit and a warning is generated. For truncation of non-space
characters, you can cause an error to occur (rather than a warning) and
suppress insertion of the value by using strict SQL mode.
For VARCHAR columns, trailing spaces in excess of the column length are
truncated prior to insertion and a warning is generated, regardless of the
SQL mode in use. For CHAR columns, truncation of excess trailing spaces
from inserted values is performed silently regardless of the SQL mode.
VARCHAR values are not padded when they are stored. Trailing spaces are
retained when values are stored and retrieved, in conformance with
standard SQL.
The following table illustrates the differences between CHAR and
VARCHAR by showing the result of storing various string values into
CHAR(4) and VARCHAR(4) columns (assuming that the column uses a
single-byte character set such as latin1):
Table 2.1: Differences between Char and Varchar Variables
The values shown as stored in the last row of the table apply only when not
using strict mode; if MySQL is running in strict mode, values that exceed the
column length are not stored, and an error results.
If a given value is stored into the CHAR(4) and VARCHAR(4) columns, the
values retrieved from the columns are not always the same because trailing
spaces are removed from CHAR columns upon retrieval. The following
example illustrates this difference:
Value CHAR(4) Storage Required
VARCHAR(4) Storage Required
4 bytes 1 bytes
ab ab 4 bytes ab 3 bytes
abcd abcd 4 bytes abcd 5 bytes
abcdefgh abcd 4 bytes abcd 5 bytes
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Values in CHAR and VARCHAR columns are sorted and compared
according to the character set collation assigned to the column.
All MySQL collations are of type PADSPACE. This means that all CHAR
and VARCHAR values in MySQL are compared without regard to any
trailing spaces. For example:
This is true for all MySQL versions, and that it is not affected by the server
SQL mode.
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For those cases where trailing pad characters are stripped or comparisons
ignore them, if a column has an index that requires unique values, inserting
into the column values that differ only in number of trailing pad characters
will result in a duplicate-key error. For example, if a table contains 'a', an
attempt to store 'a' causes a duplicate-key error.
2.3.2 The BLOB and TEXT Types
A BLOB is a binary large object that can hold a variable amount of data. The
four BLOB types are TINYBLOB, BLOB, MEDIUMBLOB, and LONGBLOB.
These differ only in the maximum length of the values they can hold. The
four TEXT types are TINYTEXT, TEXT, MEDIUMTEXT, and LONGTEXT.
These correspond to the four BLOB types and have the same maximum
lengths and storage requirements.
BLOB columns are treated as binary strings (byte strings). TEXT columns
are treated as non-binary strings (character strings). BLOB columns have no
character set, and sorting and comparison are based on the numeric values
of the bytes in column values. TEXT columns have a character set, and
values are sorted and compared based on the collation of the character set.
If strict SQL mode is not enabled and you assign a value to a BLOB or
TEXT column that exceeds the column's maximum length, the value is
truncated to fit and a warning is generated. For truncation of non-space
characters, you can cause an error to occur (rather than a warning) and
suppress insertion of the value by using strict SQL mode. Beginning with
MySQL 5.1.24, truncation of excess trailing spaces from values to be
inserted into TEXT columns always generates a warning, regardless of the
SQL mode. (Bug#30059)
If a TEXT column is indexed, index entry comparisons are space-padded at
the end. This means that, if the index requires unique values, duplicate-key
errors will occur for values that differ only in the number of trailing spaces.
For example, if a table contains 'a', an attempt to store 'a ' causes a
duplicate-key error. This is not true for BLOB columns.
In most respects, you can regard a BLOB column as a VARBINARY column
that can be as large as you like. Similarly, you can regard a TEXT column
as a VARCHAR column. BLOB and TEXT differ from VARBINARY and
VARCHAR in the following ways:
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For indexes on BLOB and TEXT columns, you must specify an index
prefix length. For CHAR and VARCHAR, a prefix length is optional.
BLOB and TEXT columns cannot have DEFAULT values.
LONG and LONG VARCHAR map to the MEDIUMTEXT data type. This is a
compatibility feature. If you use the BINARY attribute with a TEXT data type,
the column is assigned the binary collation of the column character set.
MySQL Connector/ODBC defines BLOB values as LONGVARBINARY and
TEXT values as LONGVARCHAR.
Because BLOB and TEXT values can be extremely long, you might
encounter some constraints in using them:
Only the first max_sort_length bytes of the column are used when
sorting. The default value of max_sort_length is 1024. This value can be
changed using the --max_sort_length=N option when starting the mysqld
server.
You can make more bytes significant in sorting or grouping by increasing
the value of max_sort_length at runtime. Any client can change the value of
its session max_sort_length variable:
Another way to use GROUP BY or ORDER BY on a BLOB or TEXT column
containing long values when you want more than max_sort_length bytes to
be significant is to convert the column value into a fixed-length object. The
standard way to do this is with the SUBSTRING() function. For example, the
following statement causes 2000 bytes of the comment column to be taken
into account for sorting:
The maximum size of a BLOB or TEXT object is determined by its type, but
the largest value you actually can transmit between the client and server is
determined by the amount of available memory and the size of the
mysql> SET max_sort_length = 2000;
mysql> SELECT id, comment FROM t
-> ORDER BY comment;
mysql> SELECT id, SUBSTRING(comment,1,2000) FROM t
-> ORDER BY SUBSTRING(comment,1,2000);
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communications buffers. You can change the message buffer size by
changing the value of the max_allowed_packet variable, but you must do so
for both the server and your client program.
Each BLOB or TEXT value is represented internally by a separately
allocated object. This is in contrast to all other data types, for which storage
is allocated once per column when the table is opened.
2.3.3 The ENUM Type
An ENUM is a string object with a value chosen from a list of allowed values
that are enumerated explicitly in the column specification at table creation
time.
An enumeration value must be a quoted string literal; it may not be an
expression, even one that evaluates to a string value. For example, you can
create a table with an ENUM column like this:
2.3.4 The SET Type
A string type that can accept zero or more values from a set of previously
defined possible values. This data type allows the selection of any number
of values from a predefined set of string values.
SET column values that consist of multiple set members are specified with
members separated by commas (,). A consequence of this is that SET
member values should not themselves contain commas.
A SET can have a maximum of 64 different members.
Duplicate values in the definition cause a warning, or an error if strict SQL
mode is enabled.
Trailing spaces are automatically deleted from SET member values in the
table definition when a table is created.
CREATE TABLE sizes ( name ENUM('small', 'medium', 'large') );
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This makes the SET data type a good choice for multiple-choice selections
as shown in the example given below:
Note: As with ENUM type, any attempt to use a value that is not part of the
predefined set will cause MySQL to print an error message instead as
shown in the example below:
Self Assessment Questions
1. If MySQL is running in ____ mode, values that exceed the column
length are not stored, and an error results.
2. The ______ columns have no character set, and sorting and comparison
are based on the numeric values of the bytes in column values.
2.4 Date and Time Types
The date and time types for representing temporal values are DATETIME,
DATE, TIMESTAMP, TIME, and YEAR. Each temporal type has a range of
legal values, as well as a zero value that may be used when you specify
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an illegal value that MySQL cannot represent. The TIMESTAMP type has
special automatic updating behavior, described later on.
MySQL gives warnings or errors if you try to insert an illegal date. By setting
the SQL mode to the appropriate value, you can specify more exactly what
kind of dates you want MySQL to support.
You can get MySQL to accept certain dates, such as '2009-11-31', by using
the ALLOW_INVALID_DATES SQL mode. This is useful when you want to
store a possibly wrong value which the user has specified (for example, in
a web form) in the database for future processing.
Under this mode, MySQL verifies only that the month is in the range from 0
to 12 and that the day is in the range from 0 to 31. These ranges are defined
to include zero because MySQL allows you to store dates where the day or
month and day are zero in a DATE or DATETIME column.
This is extremely useful for applications that need to store a birthdate for
which you do not know the exact date. In this case, you simply store the
date as '2009-00-00' or '2009-01-00'.
If you store dates such as these, you should not expect to get correct results
for functions such as DATE_SUB() or DATE_ADD() that require complete
dates. (If you do not want to allow zero in dates, you can use the
NO_ZERO_IN_DATE SQL mode).
Prior to MySQL 5.1.18, when DATE values are compared with DATETIME
values, the time portion of the DATETIME value is ignored, or the
comparison could be performed as a string compare.
Starting from MySQL 5.1.18, a DATE value is coerced to the DATETIME
type by adding the time portion as '00:00:00'. To mimic the old behavior, use
the CAST() function to cause the comparison operands to be treated as
previously.
For example:
MySQL also allows you to store '0000-00-00' as a dummy date (if you are
not using the NO_ZERO_DATE SQL mode). This is in some cases more
convenient (and uses less data and index space) than using NULL values.
date_col = CAST(NOW() AS DATE);
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Following are the general considerations to keep in mind when working with
date and time types:
MySQL retrieves values for a given date or time type in a standard
output format, but it attempts to interpret a variety of formats for input
values that you supply (for example, when you specify a value to be
assigned to or compared to a date or time type). Only the formats
described in the following sections are supported. It is expected that you
supply legal values. Unpredictable results may occur if you use values in
other formats.
Dates containing two-digit year values are ambiguous because the
century is unknown. MySQL interprets two-digit year values using the
following rules:
o Year values in the range 70-99 are converted to 1970-1999.
o Year values in the range 00-69 are converted to 2000-2069.
Although MySQL tries to interpret values in several formats, dates
always must be given in year-month-day order (for example, '98-09-
04'), rather than in the month-day-year or day-month-year orders
commonly used elsewhere (for example, '09-04-98', '04-09-98').
MySQL automatically converts a date or time type value to a number if
the value is used in a numeric context and vice versa.
By default, when MySQL encounters a value for a date or time type that
is out of range or otherwise illegal for the type (as described at the
beginning of this section), it converts the value to the zero value for
that type. The exception is that out-of-range TIME values are clipped to
the appropriate endpoint of the TIME range.
The following table shows the format of the zero value for each type.
Note that the use of these values produces warnings if the
NO_ZERO_DATE SQL mode is enabled.
Data Type Zero Value
DATETIME '0000-00-00 00:00:00'
DATE '0000-00-00'
TIMESTAMP '0000-00-00 00:00:00'
TIME '00:00:00'
YEAR 0000
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The table below lists the various date and time data types, together with
their allowed ranges and formats:
Table 2.2: Date and Time Data Types
Type Size (bytes)
Range Format Used For
DATE 3 1000-01-01 to
9999-12-31
YYYY-MM-DD Date Values
TIME 3 -838:59:59 to 838:59:59
HH:MM:SS Time values or durations
YEAR 1 1901 to 2155 YYYY Year Values
DATETIME 8 1000-01-01 00:00:00 to
9999-12-31 23:59:59
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
Combined date and time values
TIMESTAMP 8 1970-01-01 00:00:01 to 2038-01-09 03:14:07
YYYYMMDDHHMMSS
Combined date and time values, timestamps
2.4.1 The DATETIME, DATE, and TIMESTAMP Types
The DATETIME, DATE, and TIMESTAMP types are related. This section
describes their characteristics, how they are similar, and how they differ.
The DATETIME type is used when you need values that contain both date
and time information. MySQL retrieves and displays DATETIME values in
'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS' format. The supported range is '1000-01-01
00:00:00' to '9999-12-31 23:59:59'.
The DATE type is used when you need only a date value, without a time
part. MySQL retrieves and displays DATE values in 'YYYY-MM-DD' format.
The supported range is '1000-01-01' to '9999-12-31'.
For the DATETIME and DATE range descriptions, supported means that
although earlier values might work, there is no guarantee.
The TIMESTAMP data type has a range of '1970-01-01 00:00:01' UTC to
'2038-01-09 03:14:07' UTC. It has varying properties, depending on the
MySQL version and the SQL mode the server is running in. These
properties are described later in this section.
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You can specify DATETIME, DATE, and TIMESTAMP values using any of a
common set of formats:
As a string in either 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS' or 'YY-MM-DD
HH:MM:SS' format. A relaxed syntax is allowed: Any punctuation
character may be used as the delimiter between date parts or time parts.
For example, '98-12-31 11:30:45', '98.12.31 11+30+45', '98/12/31
11*30*45', and '98@12@31 11^30^45' are equivalent.
As a string in either 'YYYY-MM-DD' or 'YY-MM-DD' format. A relaxed
syntax is allowed here, too. For example, '98-12-31', '98.12.31',
'98/12/31', and '98@12@31' are equivalent.
As a string with no delimiters in either 'YYYYMMDDHHMMSS' or
'YYMMDDHHMMSS' format, provided that the string makes sense as a
date. For example, '20070523091528' and '070523091528' are
interpreted as '2007-05-23 09:15:28', but '071122129015' is illegal (it has
a nonsensical minute part) and becomes '0000-00-00 00:00:00'.
As a string with no delimiters in either 'YYYYMMDD' or 'YYMMDD'
format, provided that the string makes sense as a date. For example,
'20070523' and '070523' are interpreted as '2007-05-23', but '071332' is
illegal (it has nonsensical month and day parts) and becomes '0000-00-
00'.
As a number in either YYYYMMDDHHMMSS or YYMMDDHHMMSS
format, provided that the number makes sense as a date. For example,
19830905132800 and 830905132800 are interpreted as '1983-09-05
13:28:00'.
As a number in either YYYYMMDD or YYMMDD format, provided that
the number makes sense as a date. For example, 19830905 and
830905 are interpreted as '1983-09-05'.
As the result of a function that returns a value that is acceptable in a
DATETIME, DATE, or TIMESTAMP context, such as NOW() or
CURRENT_DATE.
A microseconds part is allowable in temporal values in some contexts, such
as in literal values, and in the arguments to or return values from some
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temporal functions. Microseconds are specified as a trailing .uuuuuu part in
the value. Example:
However, microseconds cannot be stored into a column of any temporal
data type. Any microseconds part is discarded.
Conversion of TIME or DATETIME values to numeric form (for example, by
adding +0) results in a double value with a microseconds part of .000000:
Illegal DATETIME, DATE, or TIMESTAMP values are converted to the
zero value of the appropriate type ('0000-00-00 00:00:00' or '0000-00-00').
TIMESTAMP Properties
TIMESTAMP columns are displayed in the same format as DATETIME
columns. In other words, the display width is fixed at 19 characters, and the
format is 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS'.
TIMESTAMP values are converted from the current time zone to UTC for
storage, and converted back from UTC to the current time zone for retrieval.
(This occurs only for the TIMESTAMP data type, not for other types such as
mysql> SELECT MICROSECOND('2010-12-10 14:12:09.019473'); +-------------------------------------------+ | MICROSECOND('2010-12-10 14:12:09.019473') | +-------------------------------------------+ | 19473 | +-------------------------------------------+
mysql> SELECT CURTIME(), CURTIME()+0; +-----------+---------------------------+ | CURTIME() | CURTIME()+0 | +-----------+---------------------------+ | 10:41:36 | 104136.000000 | +-----------+---------------------------+ mysql> SELECT NOW(), NOW()+0; +---------------------+--------------------------------------------+ | NOW() | NOW()+0 | +---------------------+---------------------------------------------+ | 2007-11-30 10:41:47 | 20071130104147.000000 | +---------------------+----------------------------------------------+
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DATETIME.) By default, the current time zone for each connection is the
server's time. The time zone can be set on a per-connection basis.
As long as the time zone setting remains constant, you get back the same
value you store. If you store a TIMESTAMP value, and then change the time
zone and retrieve the value, the retrieved value is different from the value
you stored. This occurs because the same time zone was not used for
conversion in both directions.
The current time zone is available as the value of the time_zone system
variable.
The TIMESTAMP data type offers automatic initialization and updating. You
can choose whether to use these properties and which column should have
them
2.4.2 The TIME Type
MySQL retrieves and displays TIME values in 'HH:MM:SS' format (or
'HHH:MM:SS' format for large hours values). TIME values may range from '-
838:59:59' to '838:59:59'. The hours part may be so large because the
TIME type can be used not only to represent a time of day (which must be
less than 24 hours), but also elapsed time or a time interval between two
events (which may be much greater than 24 hours, or even negative).
You can specify TIME values in a variety of formats:
As a string in 'D HH:MM:SS.fraction' format. You can also use one of
the following relaxed syntaxes: 'HH:MM:SS.fraction', 'HH:MM:SS',
'HH:MM', 'D HH:MM:SS', 'D HH:MM', 'D HH', or 'SS'. Here D represents
days and can have a value from 0 to 34. Note that MySQL does not
store the fraction part.
As a string with no delimiters in 'HHMMSS' format, provided that it
makes sense as a time. For example, '101112' is understood as
'10:11:12', but '109712' is illegal (it has a nonsensical minute part) and
becomes '00:00:00'.
As a number in HHMMSS format, provided that it makes sense as a
time. For example, 101112 is understood as '10:11:12'. The following
alternative formats are also understood: SS, MMSS, HHMMSS,
HHMMSS.fraction. Note that MySQL does not store the fraction part.
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As the result of a function that returns a value that is acceptable in a
TIME context, such as CURRENT_TIME.
A trailing .uuuuuu microseconds part of TIME values is allowed under the
same conditions as for other temporal values, The DATETIME, DATE, and
TIMESTAMP Types. This includes the property that any microseconds part
is discarded from values stored into TIME columns.
For TIME values specified as strings that include a time part delimiter, it is
not necessary to specify two digits for hours, minutes, or seconds values
that are less than 10. '8:3:2' is the same as '08:03:02'.
Be careful about assigning abbreviated values to a TIME column. Without
colons, MySQL interprets values using the assumption that the two
rightmost digits represent seconds. (MySQL interprets TIME values as
elapsed time rather than as time of day.) For example, you might think of
'1112' and 1112 as meaning '11:12:00' (12 minutes after 11 o'clock), but
MySQL interprets them as '00:11:12' (11 minutes, 12 seconds). Similarly,
'12' and 12 are interpreted as '00:00:12'. TIME values with colons, by
contrast, are always treated as time of the day. That is, '11:12' mean
'11:12:00', not '00:11:12'.
By default, values that lie outside the TIME range but are otherwise legal
are clipped to the closest endpoint of the range. For example, '-850:00:00'
and '850:00:00' are converted to '-838:59:59' and '838:59:59'.
Illegal TIME values are converted to '00:00:00'. Note that because '00:00:00'
is itself a legal TIME value, there is no way to tell, from a value of '00:00:00'
stored in a table, whether the original value was specified as '00:00:00' or
whether it was illegal.
For more restrictive treatment of invalid TIME values, enable strict SQL
mode to cause errors to occur.
2.4.3 The YEAR Type
The YEAR type is a one-byte type used for representing years. It can be
declared as YEAR(2) or YEAR(4) to specify a display width of two or four
characters. The default is four characters if no width is given.
For four-digit format, MySQL displays YEAR values in YYYY format, with a
range of 1901 to 2155. For two-digit format, MySQL displays values with a
range of 70 (1970) to 69 (2069).
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You can specify input YEAR values in a variety of formats:
As a four-digit string in the range '1901' to '2155'.
As a four-digit number in the range 1901 to 2155.
As a two-digit string in the range '00' to '99'. Values in the ranges '00' to
'69' and '70' to '99' are converted to YEAR values in the ranges 2000 to
2069 and 1970 to 1999.
As a two-digit number in the range 1 to 99. Values in the ranges 1 to 69
and 70 to 99 are converted to YEAR values in the ranges 2001 to 2069
and 1970 to 1999. Note that the range for two-digit numbers is slightly
different from the range for two-digit strings, because you cannot specify
zero directly as a number and have it be interpreted as 2000. You must
specify it as a string '0' or '00' or it is interpreted as 0000.
As the result of a function that returns a value that is acceptable in a
YEAR context, such as NOW(). Illegal YEAR values are converted to
0000.
2.4.4 Y2K Issues and Date Types
MySQL Server itself has no problems with Year 2000 (Y2K) compliance:
MySQL Server uses Unix time functions that handle dates into the year
2038 for TIMESTAMP values. For DATE and DATETIME values, dates
through the year 9999 are accepted.
All MySQL date functions are implemented in one source file,
sql/time.cc, and are coded very carefully to be year 2000-safe.
In MySQL, the YEAR data type can store the years 0 and 1901 to 2155
in one byte and display them using two or four digits. All two-digit years
are considered to be in the range 1970 to 2069, which means that if you
store 01 in a YEAR column, MySQL Server treats it as 2001.
Although MySQL Server itself is Y2K-safe, you may run into problems if you
use it with applications that are not Y2K-safe. For example, many old
applications store or manipulate years using two-digit values (which are
ambiguous) rather than four-digit values. This problem may be compounded
by applications that use values such as 00 or 99 as missing value
indicators. Unfortunately, these problems may be difficult to fix because
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different applications may be written by different programmers, each of
whom may use a different set of conventions and date-handling functions.
Thus, even though MySQL Server has no Y2K problems, it is the
application's responsibility to provide unambiguous input. Any value
containing a two-digit year is ambiguous, because the century is unknown.
Such values must be interpreted into four-digit form because MySQL stores
years internally using four digits.
For DATETIME, DATE, TIMESTAMP, and YEAR types, MySQL interprets
dates with ambiguous year values using the following rules:
Year values in the range 00-69 are converted to 2000-2069.
Year values in the range 70-99 are converted to 1970-1999.
Remember that these rules are only heuristics that provide reasonable
guesses as to what your data values mean. If the rules used by MySQL do
not produce the correct values, you should provide unambiguous input
containing four-digit year values.
Self Assessment Questions
3. Each _____ type has a range of legal values, as well as a zero value
that may be used when you specify an illegal value that MySQL cannot
represent.
4. You can get MySQL to accept certain dates, such as '2009-11-31', by
using the ______ SQL mode.
5. The format of the timestamp column in MySQL is ________________.
2.5 Column Type Storage Requirements
The storage requirements for each of the column types supported by
MySQL are listed by category.
The maximum size of a row in a MyISAM table is 65534 bytes. Each BLOB
and TEXT column accounts for only 5-9 bytes toward this size.
If a table includes any variable-length column types, the record format will
also be variable-length.
Note that when a table is created, MySQL may, under certain conditions,
change a column from a variable-length type to a fixed-length type, or vice-
versa.
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1. Numeric Types:
Table 2.3: Numeric Data Types
Column Type Storage Required
(in bytes)
TINYINT 1
SMALLINT 2
MEDIUMINT 3
INT 4
INTEGER 4
BIGINT 8
FLOAT(X) 4 if 0
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String Types:
Table 2.4: String Data Type Storage Requirements
Column Type Storage Required
(in bytes)
CHAR(M) M bytes, 0
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The size of a SET object is determined by the number of different set
members. If the set size is N, the object occupies (N+7)/8 bytes, rounded
up to 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8 bytes. A SET can have a maximum of 64 members.
2.6 Choosing the Right Type for a Column
For the most efficient use of storage, try to use the most precise type in all
cases. For example, if an integer column will be used for values in the range
from 1 to 99999, MEDIUMINT UNSIGNED is the best type. Of the types that
represent all the required values, it uses the least amount of storage.
Accurate representation of monetary values is a common problem. In
MySQL, you should use the DECIMAL type. This is stored as a string, so no
loss of accuracy should occur. If accuracy is not too important, the DOUBLE
type may also be good enough.
For high precision, you can always convert to a fixed-point type stored in a
BIGINT. This allows you to do all calculations with integers and convert
results back to floating-point values only when necessary.
2.7 Using Column Types from Other Database Engines
To make it easier to use code written for SQL implementations from other
vendors, MySQL maps column types as shown in the following table. These
mappings make it easier to import table definitions from other database
engines into MySQL:
Column type mapping occurs at table creation time. If you create a table
with types used by other vendors and then issue a DESCRIBE tbl_name
statement, MySQL reports the table structure using the equivalent MySQL
types.
Table 2.5: Mapping of MySQL Data Types and Other Vendor Types
Other Vendor Type MySQL Type
BINARY(NUM) CHAR(NUM) BINARY
CHAR VARYING(NUM) VARCHAR(NUM)
FLOAT4 FLOAT
FLOAT8 DOUBLE
INT1 TINYINT
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INT2 SMALLINT
INT3 MEDIUMINT
INT4 INT
INT8 BIGINT
LONG VARBINARY MEDIUMBLOB
LONG VARCHAR MEDIUMTEXT
LONG MEDIUMTEXT (MySQL 4.1.0 on)
MIDDLEINT MEDIUMINT
VARBINARY(NUM) VARCHAR(NUM) BINARY
Column type mapping occurs at table creation time. If you create a table
with types used by other vendors and then issue a DESCRIBE tbl_name
statement, MySQL reports the table structure using the equivalent MySQL
types.
2.8 Summary
This unit covers the following topics with respect to data types in MySQL:
1. Numeric Types: This topic discusses various Numeric data types like
Bit, Float, Integer, and so on and their various syntaxes available for
usage in numerical calculations of SQL statements.
2. String Types: This topic discusses the character data types and their
variants like CHAR and VARCHAR, String data types and their
variations.
3. Date and Time Types: This topic discusses the different variants of
Date, DateTime, and TimeStamp data types used in MySQL along with
their syntaxes and the context of usage.
4. Column Type Storage Requirements: This topic discusses the storage
requirements for each of the column types so that the user can judge the
optimum data types for his database for saving the storage space.
5. Using Column Types from other Database Engines: To make it
easier to use code written for SQL implementations from other vendors,
MySQL maps column types. These mappings make it easier to import
table definitions from other database engines into MySQL.
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2.9 Terminal Questions
1. Write about float and double data types
2. Write the differences between char and varchar data types in MySQL.
3. List the various date and time data types, together with their allowed
ranges and formats
4. Describe the storage requirements of String Column types
2.10 Answers
Self Assessment Questions
1. strict
2. BLOB
3. temporal
4. ALLOW_INVALID_DATES
5. 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS'
Terminal Questions
1. FLOAT [(M,D)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]: A small (single-precision)
floating-point number. Allowable values are -3.402823466E+38 to -
1.175494351E-38, 0, and
1.175494351E-38 to 3.402823466E+38.
DOUBLE [(M,D)] [UNSIGNED] [ZE