PHP 5/MySQL Programming- P66:computer programming has often been seen as a difficult and arcane skill. Programming languages are difficult and complicated, out of the typical person’s reach. However, the advent of the World Wide Web has changed that to some extent. It’s reasonably easy to build and post a Web page for the entire world to see. The language of the Web is reasonably simple, and numerous applications are available to assist in the preparation of static pages | 303 The basic concepts of SQL remain the same no matter what type of database you are working on. Most of the SQL commands described in this chapter work without modification in Microsoft Access Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle as well as a number of other RDBMS packages. I begin this chapter by explaining how to create a simple database in MySQL. You can work with this package a number of ways but start by writing a script that builds a database in a text file. I use the SQL language which is different in syntax and style from PHP. I show you how to use some visual tools to help work with databases and how to use the SQLite data library built into PHP 5. In chapter 10 Connecting to Databases within PHP I show you how to contact and manipulate your MySQL database from within PHP. Working ith MySQL There are a number of RDBMS packages available. These programs vary in power flexibility and price. However they all work in essentially the same way. Most examples in this book use the MySQL database. It is a very powerful program in its own right. It handles a large subset of the functionality of the most expensive and powerful database packages. It uses a standard form of the well-known SQL data language. It is released under an open-source license. It works on many operating systems and with many languages. It works very quickly and works well even with large data sets. PHP ships with a number of functions designed to support MySQL databases. Chapter 9 Using MySQL to Create Databases Installing MySQL If PHP is already on your Web server chances are that MySQL is there as well. Many installation packages install both MySQL and PHP on your system. If you do not control the Web server directly you might need to convince your server administrator to install MySQL. A version of the MySQL binary is available on the CD that accompanies this book. 304 PHP 5 MySQL Programming for the Absolute Beginner Earlier versions of PHP had built-in MySQL support. The beta version of PHP 5
