Databases and MySQL

SQL With MySQL

SQL (Structured Query Language) is a language used to interact with a relational database. While SQL is the standard basis for database communication, different database vendors usually add their own small modifications or enhancements. In order to use SQL, you need to use a client that communicates with the server. Many high-level languages like Java, C, and PHP have the libraries for that purpose. We will be using MySQL in this class (pronounced: My S-Q-L), which is one of the most widely used databases. You can use the command line program mysql to communicate with the server directly.

Installing MySQL

You will need both the mysql server and the mysql client. Installing the server automatically installs the client package, so you can get them both by running:

apt-get install mysql-server 

When the server is being installed, it will ask you for a root password for the mysql server. Pick anything you like for the password, but make sure you can remember it. You will need this password when you access your database server for administration purposes (like adding new databases or database users). If you forget the password, you can reset it later, but it's not a simple process.

There are also several tools that can help you manage mysql databases easily. One in particular is is PhpMyAdmin that allows you to manage your database over the web. Currently there are only rpms in the yum repository for the old version which does not yet support php 5.3. To download and install the phpMyAdmin software, find the appropriate download url here, and then use

wget download_url

to download it to your instance's src directory or wherever you'd like to download the tar ball. Next follow the installation/configuration instructions here

Installing phpmyadmin will automatically configure Apache for you if you let it. When installing, select Apache2 with the space bar when it asks which databases to auto configure. Then selecte Yes when it asks if you want to configure the database for phpmyadmin. You will have to supply the root mysql password you chose when installing mysql. You will also have to add a phpmyadmin password for use later. Make sure to pick something you can remember.

Using MySQL

Each mysql server can host many different databases. Each database contains many tables, which store the actual information in the database. There is no relationship between data or tables in separate databases, i.e., each database should be a self contained entity.

mysql also has its own user structure which means that you will have to add mysql users and give them permissions to access specific databases.

Starting MySQL

The interface to mysql is the mysql command. It is generally run like this:

mysql -u USERNAME -p -h HOSTNAME DATABASENAME

Note that, the user USERNAME needs to have access to the database DATABASENAME, otherwise mysql will return an error. See the next section to learn how to give users access to databases. When you run the command as above, it will prompt you for a password, which is the password for user USERNAME. Also, if you are connecting to a mysql server on the local PC, you can leave off the -h HOSTNAME argument. For example, to connect to the mydb database on the local host with user me, do:

mysql -u me -p mydb

To do the same for a mysql server running on host somewhere.dyndns.org, do:

mysql -u me -p -h somewhere.dyndns.org mydb

All administrative information about the mysql server is contained in the mysql database on the server. To manage users, you need to access mysql as the root user for the mysql database (assuming you are on the same PC with the server):

mysql -u root -p mysql

You will be prompted for a password, which in this case is the root password you selected when you installed mysql.

Managing Users

User information is stored in the user table. The fields of this table are:

+-----------------------+-----------------------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field                 | Type                              | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-----------------------+-----------------------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Host                  | char(60)                          | NO   | PRI |         |       |
| User                  | char(16)                          | NO   | PRI |         |       |
| Password              | char(41)                          | NO   |     |         |       |
| Select_priv           | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Insert_priv           | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Update_priv           | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Delete_priv           | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Create_priv           | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Drop_priv             | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Reload_priv           | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Shutdown_priv         | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Process_priv          | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| File_priv             | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Grant_priv            | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| References_priv       | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Index_priv            | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Alter_priv            | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Show_db_priv          | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Super_priv            | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Create_tmp_table_priv | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Lock_tables_priv      | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Execute_priv          | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Repl_slave_priv       | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Repl_client_priv      | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Create_view_priv      | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Show_view_priv        | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Create_routine_priv   | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Alter_routine_priv    | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| Create_user_priv      | enum('N','Y')                     | NO   |     | N       |       |
| ssl_type              | enum('','ANY','X509','SPECIFIED') | NO   |     |         |       |
| ssl_cipher            | blob                              | NO   |     |         |       |
| x509_issuer           | blob                              | NO   |     |         |       |
| x509_subject          | blob                              | NO   |     |         |       |
| max_questions         | int(11) unsigned                  | NO   |     | 0       |       |
| max_updates           | int(11) unsigned                  | NO   |     | 0       |       |
| max_connections       | int(11) unsigned                  | NO   |     | 0       |       |
| max_user_connections  | int(11) unsigned                  | NO   |     | 0       |       |
+-----------------------+-----------------------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+

The important fields are Host (which specifies from which host(s) a user can access the database), User (name of the user), Password (the password for this user), and several boolean privilege attributes. Fortunately, mysql provides the grant command that makes dealing with mysql users simpler. The format of grant is

grant PRIVILEGE_NAMES on DATABASE.TABLE to 'USERNAME'@'HOSTNAME' identified by 'USERPASSWORD';

The PRIVILEGE_NAMES could be individual privileges (SELECT, INSERT, DROP, etc.), it could be a group of privileges (USAGE), or it could be the special ALL privilege which grants USERNAME all possible privileges. The TABLE name can be, and often is, a wild card (*) which means that USERNAME is given the indicated privileges for all tables in the database DATABASE. The HOSTNAME can be any host name (somewhere.dyndns.org), it could contain the SQL wild card '%' (%.dynsdns.org) to allow access from multiple hosts that share a common domain, or it could be just the wild card (%) to indicate access should be granted from all hosts.

Here is an example that gives all privileges to the user boss' with the password employer, where the user connects only from the localhost.

grant all  on company.* to 'boss'@'localhost' identified by 'employer';

After each grant, you need to tell mysql to reload grant tables by flushing privileges:

 flush privileges;

Managing Databases

Databases in mysql are created with:

create database DATABASENAME;

The user must have administrative rights in order to create a database. A database can be deleted with the drop command:

drop database DATABASENAME;

At the mysql command prompt, you can change your active database like so:

use DATABASE;

Once the active database is changed, all your commands will be applied to the newly active database.

For example, the following commands will create and switch to a new database:

create database company;
use company;

Managing Tables

Similar to databases, tables are created and deleted with create table and drop table, respectively. When creating a table, the user needs to supply the attribute information for each column in the table.

create table TABLENAME (ATTRIBUTE TYPE, ATTRIBUTE TYPE,.....);

mysql contains several attribute types for strings, numerical values, dates, etc. The common types include char, varchar, text, blob, int, float, and date. The mysql manual contains a full list of available types [[1]].

For example, the following command will create a new table called employee:

create table employee (name char(40), dept char(20), jobtitle char(30), joined date, id int);

The employee table has 5 columns, a name string with a maximum length of 40 characters, a dept string with a maximum length of 20 characters, a jobtitle string with a maximum length of 30 characters, a joined date, and an id integer.

You can see the tables in a database by running:

show tables;

You can get a detailed description of the columns in a table with:

describe TABLENAME;

SQL Commands

Inserting New Data

The insert into command inserts a new row into a table in a database. The general form of the command is:

insert into TABLENAME values (ATTRIBUTE1_VALUE, ATTRIBUTE2_VALUE,.....)

The above commands adds one row the table TABLENAME. The number of values supplied in parenthesis must be equal to the number of columns in the table, and the values are added in the same order as the order of the columns.

If you want to insert a new row with only some values set in the row, you can specify which columns to use:

insert into TABLENAME (ATTIBUTE1,ATTRIBUTE2) values (ATTRIBUTE1_VALUE, ATTRIBUTE2_VALUE)

For example, the following commands will insert new employees to the company database.

insert into employee values ("Alice","Sales","Lost traveler","2000-03-09",4);
insert into employee values ("Peter","Management","Leader","2004-06-13",59);
insert into employee values ("Frodo","Accounting","Ring bearer","2002-01-01",17);

Here is another example that leaves some of the fields in the new row blank:

insert into employee (name,jobtitle) values ("Fry","Delivery Boy");

Retrieving Existing Data

The select command returns rows from a table, optionally based on some conditions:

select ATTRIBUTE1,ATTRIBUTE2,..... from TABLE [where CONDITION]

In this case, you specify which columns to retrieve with the ATTRIBUTE fields, from table TABLE. You can also specify the * attribute that is used to return all columns in the table. For example:

select * from employee;

This might return:

+-------+------------+---------------+------------+----+
| name  | dept       | jobtitle      | joined     | id |
+-------+------------+---------------+------------+----+
| Alice | Wonderland | Lost traveler | 2000-03-09 | 4  |
| Peter | Neverland  | Leader        | 2004-06-13 | 59 |
| Frodo | Shire      | Ring bearer   | 2002-01-01 | 17 |
| Fry   |            | Delivery Boy  |            |    |
+-------+------------+---------------+------------+----+

Here is another example to only get get Peter's job title:

select jobtitle from employee where name='Peter';

Updating Existing Data

The update command is used to modify existing data in a table. The format is similar to select:

update TABLENAME set ATTRIBUTE1=value1,ATTRIBUTE2=value2 .... [where CONDITION]

For example, this will update Frodo's department:

update employee set jobtitle='Hero' where name='Frodo';

Deleting Existing Data

The delete from command is used to delete rows from a table. Again, the format is similar to the previous commands:

delete from employee where CONDITION;

For example, the following command will delete Fry from the employee table:

delete from employee where name='Alice';

You can also use wild cards in the CONDITIONS for any SQL command. For example, this command would delete both Fry and Frodo from the employee table:

delete from employee where name like 'Fr%';

In this case the CONDITION change from name= to name like and the comparator uses the SQL wild card (%) to match any number of characters. The above command, then, deletes all row where the name column starts with Fr

You can also delete all rows from a table with:

delete from employee;

PHP and MySQL

In order to use mysql function in php, you need to have the the php5-mysql package installed. This is most likely already installed, but it's ok to try to install it again like normal with apt-get. If it's already on your system, apt-get will simply not do anything. Once installed, you can use PHP to connect to a mysql database by using the mysql_connect PHP function:

$sqlserver=mysql_connect('HOSTNAME','DATABASEUSER','PASSWORD');

The HOSTNAME is either an IP address or DNS name of the machine running the mysql server, the DATABASEUSER is the name of a user who can run the required commands, and the PASSWORD is that user's password. mysql_connect returns a mysql object that you will use later to communicate with the server. If the connection fails, $sqlserver will be NULL. Once connected, you can select a database with the mysql_select_db PHP function:

mysql_select_db('DATABASENAME',$sqlserver);

This would use the connection opened earlier ($sqlserver) to access the DATABASENAME database.

You can close a connection with mysql_close:

mysql_close($sqlserver);

SQL commands are sent to the database through the mysql_query command:

mysql_query(SQLQUERY, $sqlserver) 

SQLQUERY is any valid SQL statement, including select, delete, update, and insert statements. Here is an example:

mysql_query("insert into employee values ('Sheridan','Command','Commander','2006-02-25)", $sqlserver) or die('Error, insert query failed');

This example inserts a new row into the employee table, or causes the PHP script to stop processing with die is an error occurs. mysql_query also receives data from the server. For example, if you run a select query, then you can loop over the results for each returned row:

  $result = mysql_query('select * from employee',$sqlserver);

  while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC))
  {
    echo "Name: {$row['name']} <br>" .
         "Department: {$row['dept']} <br>" .
         "Job Title: {$row['jobtitle']} <br>";
  }

After the select query is sent, individual rows are fetched with mysql_fetch_array. The parameter MYSQL_ASSOC tells the function that the results should be in the format of an associative array, i.e., the values can be reached by the name of the column from which the data came. If you want a numeric array, you can use MYSQL_NUM. The default is MYSQL_BOTH. If you are interested in the total number of rows returned, you can call the mysql_num_rows function.

The PHP manual has fairly detailed descriptions of each mysql related function, so always look there if you're not sure how to do something in PHP: [2].

Other MySQL Information

The configuration file for mysql is /etc/mysql/my.cnf. It specifies mysql directories and other parameters. For example, if you want to migrate all the data from one mysql server to another, it is sufficient to copy files from datadir, which defaults to /var/lib/mysql from /etc/mysql/my.cnf on Ubuntu. Another interesting parameter is bind-address. By default, it restricts the access to mysql to the localhost, so you will probably want to comment it out, thereby allowing access from any host.

mysqladmin is the official command line program to communicate with the server for management tasks related to the server. Common tasks that can be handled by mysqladmin include flushing some mysql elements (such as tables, privileges etc.), kill mysql threads, restart, shutdown, or validate a client. In order to use this command, you need to provide the root password selected when the mysql server was installed.