MySQL ALTER command is very useful when you want to change a name of your table, any table field or if you want to add or delete an existing column in a table.

Let”s begin with creation of a table called tutorials_alter.

root@host# mysql -u root -p password;
Enter password:*******

mysql> use TUTORIALS;
Database changed

mysql> create table tutorials_alter
   → (
   → i INT,
   → c CHAR(1)
   → );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.27 sec)

mysql> SHOW COLUMNS FROM tutorials_alter;
+-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type    | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| i     | int(11) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| c     | char(1) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
2 rows in set (0.02 sec)

Dropping, Adding or Repositioning a Column

Suppose you want to drop an existing column i from above MySQL table then you will use DROP clause along with ALTER command as follows −

mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_alter  DROP i;

A DROP will not work if the column is the only one left in the table.

To add a column, use ADD and specify the column definition. The following statement restores the i column to tutorials_alter −

mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_alter ADD i INT;

After issuing this statement, testalter will contain the same two columns that it had when you first created the table, but will not have quite the same structure. That”s because new columns are added to the end of the table by default. So even though i originally was the first column in mytbl, now it is the last one.

mysql> SHOW COLUMNS FROM tutorials_alter;
+-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type    | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| c     | char(1) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| i     | int(11) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
2 rows in set (0.01 sec)

To indicate that you want a column at a specific position within the table, either use FIRST to make it the first column or AFTER col_name to indicate that the new column should be placed after col_name. Try the following ALTER TABLE statements, using SHOW COLUMNS after each one to see what effect each one has −

ALTER TABLE testalter_tbl DROP i;
ALTER TABLE testalter_tbl ADD i INT FIRST;
ALTER TABLE testalter_tbl DROP i;
ALTER TABLE testalter_tbl ADD i INT AFTER c;

The FIRST and AFTER specifiers work only with the ADD clause. This means that if you want to reposition an existing column within a table, you first must DROP it and then ADD it at the new position.

Changing a Column Definition or Name

To change a column”s definition, use MODIFY or CHANGE clause along with ALTER command. For example, to change column c from CHAR(1) to CHAR(10), do this −

mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_alter MODIFY c CHAR(10);

With CHANGE, the syntax is a bit different. After the CHANGE keyword, you name the column you want to change, then specify the new definition, which includes the new name. Try out the following example:

mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_alter CHANGE i j BIGINT;

If you now use CHANGE to convert j from BIGINT back to INT without changing the column name, the statement will be as expected −

mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_alter CHANGE j j INT;

The Effect of ALTER TABLE on Null and Default Value Attributes −

When you MODIFY or CHANGE a column, you can also specify whether or not the column can contain NULL values and what its default value is. In fact, if you don”t do this, MySQL automatically assigns values for these attributes.

Here is the example, where NOT NULL column will have value 100 by default.

mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_alter
   → MODIFY j BIGINT NOT NULL DEFAULT 100;

If you don”t use above command, then MySQL will fill up NULL values in all the columns.

Changing a Column”s Default Value

You can change a default value for any column using ALTER command. Try out the following example.

mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_alter ALTER j SET DEFAULT 1000;
mysql> SHOW COLUMNS FROM tutorials_alter;
+-------+------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type       | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------+------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| c     | char(10)   | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| j     | bigint(20) | NO   |     | 1000    |       |
+-------+------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
2 rows in set (0.02 sec)

You can remove default constraint from any column by using DROP clause along with ALTER command.

mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_alter ALTER j DROP DEFAULT;
mysql> SHOW COLUMNS FROM tutorials_alter;
+-------+------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type       | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------+------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| c     | char(10)   | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| j     | bigint(20) | NO   |     | NULL    |       |
+-------+------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
2 rows in set (0.02 sec)

Changing a Table Type

You can use a table type by using TYPE clause along with ALTER command.

To find out the current type of a table, use the SHOW TABLE STATUS statement.

mysql>  SHOW TABLE STATUS LIKE ''tutorials_alter''G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
           Name: tutorials_alter
         Engine: InnoDB
        Version: 10
     Row_format: Compact
           Rows: 0
 Avg_row_length: 0
    Data_length: 16384
Max_data_length: 0
   Index_length: 0
      Data_free: 0
 Auto_increment: NULL
    Create_time: 2017-02-17 11:30:29
    Update_time: NULL
     Check_time: NULL
      Collation: latin1_swedish_ci
       Checksum: NULL
 Create_options:
        Comment:
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Renaming a Table

To rename a table, use the RENAME option of the ALTER TABLE statement. Try out the following example to rename tutorials_alter to tutorials_bks.

mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_alter RENAME TO tutorials_bks;

You can use ALTER command to create and drop INDEX on a MySQL file. We will see this feature in next chapter.

Properly defining the fields in a table is important to the overall optimization of your database. You should use only the type and size of field you really need to use; don”t define a field as 10 characters wide if you know you”re only going to use 2 characters. These types of fields (or columns) are also referred to as data types, after the type of data you will be storing in those fields.

MySQL uses many different data types broken into three categories: numeric, date and time, and string types.

Numeric Data Types

MySQL uses all the standard ANSI SQL numeric data types, so if you”re coming to MySQL from a different database system, these definitions will look familiar to you. The following list shows the common numeric data types and their descriptions −

• INT − A normal-sized integer that can be signed or unsigned. If signed, the allowable range is from -2147483648 to 2147483647. If unsigned, the allowable range is from 0 to 4294967295. You can specify a width of up to 11 digits.

• TINYINT − A very small integer that can be signed or unsigned. If signed, the allowable range is from -128 to 127. If unsigned, the allowable range is from 0 to 255. You can specify a width of up to 4 digits.

• SMALLINT − A small integer that can be signed or unsigned. If signed, the allowable range is from -32768 to 32767. If unsigned, the allowable range is from 0 to 65535. You can specify a width of up to 5 digits.

• MEDIUMINT − A medium-sized integer that can be signed or unsigned. If signed, the allowable range is from -8388608 to 8388607. If unsigned, the allowable range is from 0 to 16777215. You can specify a width of up to 9 digits.

• BIGINT − A large integer that can be signed or unsigned. If signed, the allowable range is from -9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807. If unsigned, the allowable range is from 0 to 18446744073709551615. You can specify a width of up to 20 digits.

• FLOAT(M,D) − A floating-point number that cannot be unsigned. You can define the display length (M) and the number of decimals (D). This is not required and will default to 10,2, where 2 is the number of decimals and 10 is the total number of digits (including decimals). Decimal precision can go to 24 places for a FLOAT.

• DOUBLE(M,D) − A double precision floating-point number that cannot be unsigned. You can define the display length (M) and the number of decimals (D). This is not required and will default to 16,4, where 4 is the number of decimals. Decimal precision can go to 53 places for a DOUBLE. REAL is a synonym for DOUBLE.

• DECIMAL(M,D) − An unpacked floating-point number that cannot be unsigned. In unpacked decimals, each decimal corresponds to one byte. Defining the display length (M) and the number of decimals (D) is required. NUMERIC is a synonym for DECIMAL.

Date and Time Types

The MySQL date and time datatypes are −

• DATE − A date in YYYY-MM-DD format, between 1000-01-01 and 9999-12-31. For example, December 30th, 1973 would be stored as 1973-12-30.

• DATETIME − A date and time combination in YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS format, between 1000-01-01 00:00:00 and 9999-12-31 23:59:59. For example, 3:30 in the afternoon on December 30th, 1973 would be stored as 1973-12-30 15:30:00.

• TIMESTAMP − A timestamp between midnight, January 1, 1970 and sometime in 2037. This looks like the previous DATETIME format, only without the hyphens between numbers; 3:30 in the afternoon on December 30th, 1973 would be stored as 19731230153000 ( YYYYMMDDHHMMSS ).

• TIME − Stores the time in HH:MM:SS format.

• YEAR(M) − Stores a year in 2-digit or 4-digit format. If the length is specified as 2 (for example YEAR(2)), YEAR can be 1970 to 2069 (70 to 69). If the length is specified as 4, YEAR can be 1901 to 2155. The default length is 4.

String Types

Although numeric and date types are fun, most data you”ll store will be in string format. This list describes the common string datatypes in MySQLi.

• CHAR(M) − A fixed-length string between 1 and 255 characters in length (for example CHAR(5)), right-padded with spaces to the specified length when stored. Defining a length is not required, but the default is 1.

• VARCHAR(M) − A variable-length string between 1 and 255 characters in length; for example VARCHAR(25). You must define a length when creating a VARCHAR field.

• BLOB or TEXT − A field with a maximum length of 65535 characters. BLOBs are “Binary Large Objects” and are used to store large amounts of binary data, such as images or other types of files. Fields defined as TEXT also hold large amounts of data; the difference between the two is that sorts and comparisons on stored data are case sensitive on BLOBs and are not case sensitive in TEXT fields. You do not specify a length with BLOB or TEXT.

• TINYBLOB or TINYTEXT − A BLOB or TEXT column with a maximum length of 255 characters. You do not specify a length with TINYBLOB or TINYTEXT.

• MEDIUMBLOB or MEDIUMTEXT − A BLOB or TEXT column with a maximum length of 16777215 characters. You do not specify a length with MEDIUMBLOB or MEDIUMTEXT.

• LONGBLOB or LONGTEXT − A BLOB or TEXT column with a maximum length of 4294967295 characters. You do not specify a length with LONGBLOB or LONGTEXT.

• ENUM − An enumeration, which is a fancy term for list. When defining an ENUM, you are creating a list of items from which the value must be selected (or it can be NULL). For example, if you wanted your field to contain “A” or “B” or “C”, you would define your ENUM as ENUM (”A”, ”B”, ”C”) and only those values (or NULL) could ever populate that field.

You have seen MySQL pattern matching with LIKE …%. MySQL supports another type of pattern matching operation based on regular expressions and the REGEXP operator. If you are aware of PHP or PERL, then it”s very simple for you to understand because this matching is very similar to those scripting regular expressions.

Following is the table of pattern, which can be used along with REGEXP operator.

Examples

Now based on above table, you can device various type of SQL queries to meet your requirements. Here, I”m listing few for your understanding. Consider we have a table called tutorials_inf and it”s having a field called name −

Query to find all the names starting with ”sa”

mysql>  SELECT * FROM tutorials_inf WHERE name REGEXP ''^sa

The sample output should be like this −

+----+------+
| id | name |
+----+------+
|  1 | sai  |
+----+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Query to find all the names ending with ”ai”

mysql> SELECT * FROM tutorials_inf WHERE name REGEXP ''ai$

The sample output should be like this −

+----+------+
| id | name |
+----+------+
|  1 | sai  |
+----+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Query to find all the names, which contain ”a”

mysql> SELECT * FROM tutorials_inf WHERE name REGEXP ''a

The sample output should be like this −

+----+-------+
| id | name  |
+----+-------+
|  1 | sai   |
|  3 | ram   |
|  4 | johar |
+----+-------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Query to find all the names starting with a vowel

mysql>  SELECT * FROM tutorials_inf WHERE name REGEXP ''^[aeiou]

Running and Shutting down MySQL Server

First check if your MySQL server is running or not. You can use the following command to check it −

ps -ef | grep mysqld

If your MySql is running, then you will see mysqld process listed out in your result. If server is not running, then you can start it by using the following command −

root@host# cd /usr/bin
./safe_mysqld &

Now, if you want to shut down an already running MySQL server, then you can do it by using the following command −

root@host# cd /usr/bin
./mysqladmin -u root -p shutdown
Enter password: ******

Setting Up a MySQL User Account

For adding a new user to MySQL, you just need to add a new entry to the user table in the database mysql.

The following program is an example of adding a new user guest with SELECT, INSERT and UPDATE privileges with the password guest123; the SQL query is −

root@host# mysql -u root -p
Enter password:*******
mysql> use mysql;
Database changed

mysql> INSERT INTO user
   (host, user, password,
   select_priv, insert_priv, update_priv)
   VALUES (''localhost'', ''guest'',
   PASSWORD(''guest123''), ''Y'', ''Y'', ''Y'');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.20 sec)

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> SELECT host, user, password FROM user WHERE user = ''guest
+-----------+---------+------------------+
|    host   |   user  |     password     |
+-----------+---------+------------------+
| localhost |  guest  | 6f8c114b58f2ce9e |
+-----------+---------+------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

When adding a new user, remember to encrypt the new password using PASSWORD() function provided by MySQL. As you can see in the above example, the password mypass is encrypted to 6f8c114b58f2ce9e.

Notice the FLUSH PRIVILEGES statement. This tells the server to reload the grant tables. If you don”t use it, then you won”t be able to connect to MySQL using the new user account at least until the server is rebooted.

You can also specify other privileges to a new user by setting the values of following columns in user table to ”Y” when executing the INSERT query or you can update them later using UPDATE query.

• Select_priv
• Insert_priv
• Update_priv
• Delete_priv
• Create_priv
• Drop_priv
• Reload_priv
• Shutdown_priv
• Process_priv
• File_priv
• Grant_priv
• References_priv
• Index_priv
• Alter_priv

Another way of adding user account is by using GRANT SQL command. The following example will add user zara with password zara123 for a particular database, which is named as TUTORIALS.

root@host# mysql -u root -p password;
Enter password:*******
mysql> use mysql;
Database changed

mysql> GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,DROP
   → ON TUTORIALS.*
   → TO ''zara''@''localhost''
   → IDENTIFIED BY ''zara123

This will also create an entry in the MySQL database table called as user.

NOTE − MySQL does not terminate a command until you give a semi colon (;) at the end of the SQL command.

The /etc/my.cnf File Configuration

In most of the cases, you should not touch this file. By default, it will have the following entries −

[mysqld]
datadir = /var/lib/mysql
socket = /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

[mysql.server]
user = mysql
basedir = /var/lib

[safe_mysqld]
err-log = /var/log/mysqld.log
pid-file = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid

Here, you can specify a different directory for the error log, otherwise you should not change any entry in this table.

Administrative MySQL Command

Here is the list of the important MySQL commands, which you will use time to time to work with MySQL database −

• USE Databasename − This will be used to select a database in the MySQL workarea.

• SHOW DATABASES − Lists out the databases that are accessible by the MySQL DBMS.

• SHOW TABLES − Shows the tables in the database once a database has been selected with the use command.

• SHOW COLUMNS FROM tablename: Shows the attributes, types of attributes, key information, whether NULL is permitted, defaults, and other information for a table.

• SHOW INDEX FROM tablename − Presents the details of all indexes on the table, including the PRIMARY KEY.

• SHOW TABLE STATUS LIKE tablenameG − Reports details of the MySQL DBMS performance and statistics.

A database index is a data structure that improves the speed of operations in a table. Indexes can be created using one or more columns, providing the basis for both rapid random lookups and efficient ordering of access to records.

While creating index, it should be considered that what are the columns which will be used to make SQL queries and create one or more indexes on those columns.

Practically, indexes are also type of tables, which keep primary key or index field and a pointer to each record into the actual table.

The users cannot see the indexes, they are just used to speed up queries and will be used by Database Search Engine to locate records very fast.

INSERT and UPDATE statements take more time on tables having indexes where as SELECT statements become fast on those tables. The reason is that while doing insert or update, database need to insert or update index values as well.

Simple and Unique Index

You can create a unique index on a table. A unique index means that two rows cannot have the same index value. Here is the syntax to create an Index on a table.

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX index_name ON table_name ( column1, column2,...);

You can use one or more columns to create an index. For example, we can create an index on tutorials_inf using NAME_INDEX.

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX NAME_INDEX ON tutorials_inf(name);

You can create a simple index on a table. Just omit UNIQUE keyword from the query to create simple index. Simple index allows duplicate values in a table.

If you want to index the values in a column in descending order, you can add the reserved word DESC after the column name.

mysql> CREATE UNIQUE INDEX NAME_INDEX ON tutorials_inf (name DESC);

ALTER command to add and drop INDEX

There are four types of statements for adding indexes to a table −

• ALTER TABLE tbl_name ADD PRIMARY KEY (column_list) − This statement adds a PRIMARY KEY, which means that indexed values must be unique and cannot be NULL.

• ALTER TABLE tbl_name ADD UNIQUE index_name (column_list) − This statement creates an index for which values must be unique (with the exception of NULL values, which may appear multiple times).

• ALTER TABLE tbl_name ADD INDEX index_name (column_list) − This adds an ordinary index in which any value may appear more than once.

• ALTER TABLE tbl_name ADD FULLTEXT index_name (column_list) − This creates a special FULLTEXT index that is used for text-searching purposes.

Here is the example to add index in an existing table.

mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_inf ADD INDEX (id);

You can drop any INDEX by using DROP clause along with ALTER command. Try out the following example to drop above-created index.

mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_inf DROP INDEX (c);

You can drop any INDEX by using DROP clause along with ALTER command. Try out the following example to drop above-created index.

ALTER Command to add and drop PRIMARY KEY

You can add primary key as well in the same way. But make sure Primary Key works on columns, which are NOT NULL.

Here is the example to add primary key in an existing table. This will make a column NOT NULL first and then add it as a primary key.

mysql>  ALTER TABLE tutorials_inf MODIFY id INT NOT NULL;
mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_inf ADD PRIMARY KEY (id);

You can use ALTER command to drop a primary key as follows:

mysql> ALTER TABLE tutorials_inf DROP PRIMARY KEY;

To drop an index that is not a PRIMARY KEY, you must specify the index name.

Displaying INDEX Information

You can use SHOW INDEX command to list out all the indexes associated with a table. Vertical-format output (specified by G) often is useful with this statement, to avoid long line wraparound −

Try out the following example

mysql> SHOW INDEX FROM table_nameG
........

Downloading MySQL

The MySQLi extension is designed to work with MySQL version 4.1.13 or newer, So have to download MySQL. All downloads for MySQL are located at . Pick the latest version number for MySQL Community Server you want and, as exactly as possible, the platform you want.

Installing MySQL on Linux/UNIX

The recommended way to install MySQL on a Linux system is via RPM. MySQL AB makes the following RPMs available for download on its web site −

• MySQL − The MySQL database server, which manages databases and tables, controls user access, and processes SQL queries.

• MySQL-client − MySQL client programs, which make it possible to connect to and interact with the server.

• MySQL-devel − Libraries and header files that come in handy when compiling other programs that use MySQL.

• MySQL-shared − Shared libraries for the MySQL client.

• MySQL-bench − Benchmark and performance testing tools for the MySQL database server.

The MySQL RPMs listed here are all built on a SuSE Linux system, but they”ll usually work on other Linux variants with no difficulty.

Now, follow the following steps to proceed for installation −

• Login to the system using root user.

• Switch to the directory containing the RPMs −

• Install the MySQL database server by executing the following command. Remember to replace the filename in italics with the file name of your RPM.

[root@host]# rpm -i MySQL-5.0.9-0.i386.rpm

Above command takes care of installing MySQL server, creating a user of MySQL, creating necessary configuration and starting MySQL server automatically.

You can find all the MySQL related binaries in /usr/bin and /usr/sbin. All the tables and databases will be created in /var/lib/mysql directory.

• This is optional but recommended step to install the remaining RPMs in the same manner −

[root@host]# rpm -i MySQL-client-5.0.9-0.i386.rpm
[root@host]# rpm -i MySQL-devel-5.0.9-0.i386.rpm
[root@host]# rpm -i MySQL-shared-5.0.9-0.i386.rpm
[root@host]# rpm -i MySQL-bench-5.0.9-0.i386.rpm

Installing MySQL on Windows

Default installation on any version of Windows is now much easier than it used to be, as MySQL now comes neatly packaged with an installer. Simply download the installer package, unzip it anywhere, and run setup.exe.

Default installer setup.exe will walk you through the trivial process and by default will install everything under C:mysql.

Test the server by firing it up from the command prompt the first time. Go to the location of the mysqld server which is probably C:mysqlbin, and type −

mysqld.exe --console

NOTE − If you are on NT, then you will have to use mysqld-nt.exe instead of mysqld.exe

If all went well, you will see some messages about startup and InnoDB. If not, you may have a permissions issue. Make sure that the directory that holds your data is accessible to whatever user (probably mysql) the database processes run under.

MySQL will not add itself to the start menu, and there is no particularly nice GUI way to stop the server either. Therefore, if you tend to start the server by double clicking the mysqld executable, you should remember to halt the process by hand by using mysqladmin, Task List, Task Manager, or other Windows-specific means.

Verifying MySQL Installation

After MySQL has been successfully installed, the base tables have been initialized, and the server has been started, you can verify that all is working as it should via some simple tests.

Use the mysqladmin Utility to Obtain Server Status

Use mysqladmin binary to check server version. This binary would be available in /usr/bin on linux and in C:mysqlbin on windows.

[root@host]# mysqladmin --version

It will produce the following result on Linux. It may vary depending on your installation −

mysqladmin  Ver 8.23 Distrib 5.0.9-0, for redhat-linux-gnu on i386

If you do not get such message, then there may be some problem in your installation and you would need some help to fix it.

Execute simple SQL commands using MySQL Client

You can connect to your MySQL server by using MySQL client using mysql command. At this moment, you do not need to give any password as by default it will be set to blank.

So just use following command

[root@host]# mysql

It should be rewarded with a mysql> prompt. Now, you are connected to the MySQL server and you can execute all the SQL command at mysql> prompt as follows −

mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
+----------+
| Database |
+----------+
| mysql    |
| test     |
+----------+
2 rows in set (0.13 sec)

Post-installation Steps

MySQL ships with a blank password for the root MySQL user. As soon as you have successfully installed the database and client, you need to set a root password as follows −

[root@host]# mysqladmin -u root password "new_password";

Now to make a connection to your MySQL server, you would have to use the following command −

[root@host]# mysql -u root -p
Enter password:*******

UNIX users will also want to put your MySQL directory in your PATH, so you won”t have to keep typing out the full path every time you want to use the command-line client. For bash, it would be something like −

export PATH = $PATH:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

Running MySQL at boot time

If you want to run MySQL server at boot time, then make sure you have following entry in /etc/rc.local file.

/etc/init.d/mysqld start

Also,you should have mysqld binary in /etc/init.d/ directory.

Obtaining and Using MySQL Metadata

There are three types of information, which you would like to have from MySQL.

• Information about the result of queries − This includes the number of records affected by any SELECT, UPDATE or DELETE statement.

• Information about the tables and databases − This includes information pertaining to the structure of the tables and the databases.

• Information about the MySQL server − This includes the status of the database server, version number, etc.

It is very easy to get all this information at the MySQL prompt, but while using PERL or PHP APIs, we need to call various APIs explicitly to obtain all this information.

Obtaining the Number of Rows Affected by a Query

Let is now see how to obtain this information.

PERL Example

In DBI scripts, the affected row count is returned by the do( ) or by the execute( ) command, depending on how you execute the query.

# Method 1
# execute $query using do( )
my $count = $dbh→do ($query);
# report 0 rows if an error occurred
printf "%d rows were affectedn", (defined ($count) ? $count : 0);

# Method 2
# execute query using prepare( ) plus execute( )
my $sth = $dbh→prepare ($query);
my $count = $sth→execute ( );
printf "%d rows were affectedn", (defined ($count) ? $count : 0);

PHP Example

In PHP, invoke the mysql_affected_rows( ) function to find out how many rows a query changed.

$result_id = mysql_query ($query, $conn_id);
# report 0 rows if the query failed
$count = ($result_id ? mysql_affected_rows ($conn_id) : 0);
print ("$count rows were affectedn");

Listing Tables and Databases

It is very easy to list down all the databases and the tables available with a database server. Your result may be null if you don”t have the sufficient privileges.

Apart from the method which is shown in the following code block, you can use SHOW TABLES or SHOW DATABASES queries to get the list of tables or databases either in PHP or in PERL.

PERL Example

# Get all the tables available in current database.
my @tables = $dbh→tables ( );

foreach $table (@tables ){
   print "Table Name $tablen";
}

PHP Example

Try the following example to get database info −

Copy and paste the following example as mysql_example.php −

<html>
   <head>
      <title>Getting MySQL Database Info</title>
   </head>
   <body>
      <?php
         $dbhost = ''localhost
         $dbuser = ''root
         $dbpass = ''root@123
         $dbname = ''TUTORIALS
         $mysqli = new mysqli($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass, $dbname);
         $tutorial_count = null;

         if($mysqli→connect_errno ) {
            printf("Connect failed: %s<br />", $mysqli→connect_error);
            exit();
         }
         printf(''Connected successfully.<br />'');

         if ($result = mysqli_query($mysqli, "SELECT DATABASE()")) {
            $row = mysqli_fetch_row($result);
            printf("Default database is %s<br />", $row[0]);
            mysqli_free_result($result);
         }
         $mysqli→close();
      ?>
   </body>
</html>

Output

Access the mysql_example.php deployed on apache web server and verify the output.

Connected successfully.
Default database is tutorials

Getting Server Metadata

There are a few important commands in MySQL which can be executed either at the MySQL prompt or by using any script like PHP to get various important information about the database server.

We have seen the SQL SELECT command along with the WHERE clause to fetch data from a MySQL table, but when we try to give a condition, which compares the field or the column value to NULL, it does not work properly.

To handle such a situation, MySQL provides three operators −

• IS NULL − This operator returns true, if the column value is NULL.

• IS NOT NULL − This operator returns true, if the column value is not NULL.

• <=> − This operator compares values, which (unlike the = operator) is true even for two NULL values.

The conditions involving NULL are special. You cannot use = NULL or != NULL to look for NULL values in columns. Such comparisons always fail because it is impossible to tell whether they are true or not. Sometimes, even NULL = NULL fails.

To look for columns that are or are not NULL, use IS NULL or IS NOT NULL.

Using NULL values at the Command Prompt

Assume that there is a table called tcount_tbl in the TUTORIALS database and it contains two columns namely tutorial_author and tutorial_count, where a NULL tutorial_count indicates that the value is unknown.

Example

Try the following examples −

root@host# mysql -u root -p password;
Enter password:*******

mysql> use TUTORIALS;
Database changed

mysql> create table tcount_tbl
   → (
   → tutorial_author varchar(40) NOT NULL,
   → tutorial_count  INT
   → );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.05 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO tcount_tbl
   → (tutorial_author, tutorial_count) values (''mahran'', 20);

mysql> INSERT INTO tcount_tbl
   → (tutorial_author, tutorial_count) values (''mahnaz'', NULL);

mysql> INSERT INTO tcount_tbl
   → (tutorial_author, tutorial_count) values (''Jen'', NULL);

mysql> INSERT INTO tcount_tbl
   → (tutorial_author, tutorial_count) values (''Gill'', 20);

mysql> SELECT * from tcount_tbl;
+-----------------+----------------+
| tutorial_author | tutorial_count |
+-----------------+----------------+
|     mahran      |       20       |
|     mahnaz      |      NULL      |
|      Jen        |      NULL      |
|     Gill        |       20       |
+-----------------+----------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

You can see that = and != do not work with NULL values as follows −

mysql> SELECT * FROM tcount_tbl WHERE tutorial_count = NULL;
Empty set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT * FROM tcount_tbl WHERE tutorial_count != NULL;
Empty set (0.01 sec)

To find the records where the tutorial_count column is or is not NULL, the queries should be written as shown in the following program.

mysql> SELECT * FROM tcount_tbl
   → WHERE tutorial_count IS NULL;
+-----------------+----------------+
| tutorial_author | tutorial_count |
+-----------------+----------------+
|     mahnaz      |      NULL      |
|      Jen        |      NULL      |
+-----------------+----------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
mysql> SELECT * from tcount_tbl
   → WHERE tutorial_count IS NOT NULL;
+-----------------+----------------+
| tutorial_author | tutorial_count |
+-----------------+----------------+
|     mahran      |       20       |
|     Gill        |       20       |
+-----------------+----------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Handling NULL Values in a PHP Script

You can use the if…else condition to prepare a query based on the NULL value.

The following example takes the tutorial_count from outside and then compares it with the value available in the table.

Example

Copy and paste the following example as mysql_example.php −

<html>
   <head>
      <title>Handling NULL</title>
   </head>
   <body>
      <?php
         $dbhost = ''localhost
         $dbuser = ''root
         $dbpass = ''root@123
         $dbname = ''TUTORIALS
         $mysqli = new mysqli($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass, $dbname);
         $tutorial_count = null;
         if($mysqli→connect_errno ) {
            printf("Connect failed: %s<br />", $mysqli→connect_error);
            exit();
         }
         printf(''Connected successfully.<br />'');

         if( isset($tutorial_count )) {
            $sql = ''SELECT tutorial_author, tutorial_count
               FROM  tcount_tbl
               WHERE tutorial_count = '' + $tutorial_count;
         } else {
            $sql = ''SELECT tutorial_author, tutorial_count
               FROM  tcount_tbl
               WHERE tutorial_count IS NULL
         }
         $result = $mysqli→query($sql);

         if ($result→num_rows > 0) {
            while($row = $result→fetch_assoc()) {
               printf("Author: %s, Count: %d <br />",
                  $row["tutorial_author"],
                  $row["tutorial_count"]);
            }
         } else {
            printf(''No record found.<br />'');
         }
         $mysqli→close();
      ?>
   </body>
</html>

Output

Access the mysql_example.php deployed on apache web server and verify the output.

Connected successfully.
No record found.

We have seen the SQL SELECT command to fetch data from a MySQL table. When you select rows, the MySQL server is free to return them in any order, unless you instruct it otherwise by saying how to sort the result. But, you sort a result set by adding an ORDER BY clause that names the column or columns which you want to sort.

Syntax

The following code block is a generic SQL syntax of the SELECT command along with the ORDER BY clause to sort the data from a MySQL table.

SELECT field1, field2,...fieldN table_name1, table_name2...
ORDER BY field1, [field2...] [ASC [DESC]]

• You can sort the returned result on any field, if that field is being listed out.

• You can sort the result on more than one field.

• You can use the keyword ASC or DESC to get result in ascending or descending order. By default, it”s the ascending order.

• You can use the WHERE…LIKE clause in the usual way to put a condition.

Using ORDER BY clause at the Command Prompt

This will use the SQL SELECT command with the ORDER BY clause to fetch data from the MySQL table – tutorials_tbl.

Example

Try out the following example, which returns the result in an ascending order.

root@host# mysql -u root -p password;
Enter password:*******
mysql> use TUTORIALS;
Database changed
mysql> SELECT * from tutorials_tbl ORDER BY tutorial_author ASC
+-------------+----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| tutorial_id | tutorial_title | tutorial_author | submission_date |
+-------------+----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
|      2      |  Learn MySQL   |     Abdul S     |    2007-05-24   |
|      1      |   Learn PHP    |    John Poul    |    2007-05-24   |
|      3      | JAVA Tutorial  |     Sanjay      |    2007-05-06   |
+-------------+----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
3 rows in set (0.42 sec)

mysql>

Verify all the author names that are listed out in the ascending order.

Using ORDER BY clause inside a PHP Script

PHP uses mysqli query() or mysql_query() function to get sorted records from a MySQL table. This function takes two parameters and returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.

Syntax

$mysqli→query($sql,$resultmode)

Example

Try the following example to get sorted records from a table −

Copy and paste the following example as mysql_example.php −

<html>
   <head>
      <title>Sorting MySQL Table records</title>
   </head>
   <body>
      <?php
         $dbhost = ''localhost
         $dbuser = ''root
         $dbpass = ''root@123
         $dbname = ''TUTORIALS
         $mysqli = new mysqli($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass, $dbname);

         if($mysqli→connect_errno ) {
            printf("Connect failed: %s<br />", $mysqli→connect_error);
            exit();
         }
         printf(''Connected successfully.<br />'');

         $sql = "SELECT tutorial_id, tutorial_title, tutorial_author, submission_date FROM tutorials_tbl order by tutorial_title asc";
         $result = $mysqli→query($sql);

         if ($result→num_rows > 0) {
            while($row = $result→fetch_assoc()) {
               printf("Id: %s, Title: %s, Author: %s, Date: %d <br />",
                  $row["tutorial_id"],
                  $row["tutorial_title"],
                  $row["tutorial_author"],
                  $row["submission_date"]);
            }
         } else {
            printf(''No record found.<br />'');
         }
         mysqli_free_result($result);
         $mysqli→close();
      ?>
   </body>
</html>

Output

Access the mysql_example.php deployed on apache web server and verify the output.

Connected successfully.
Id: 5, Title: Apache Tutorial, Author: Suresh, Date: 2021
Id: 2, Title: HTML Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021
Id: 1, Title: MySQL Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021
Id: 3, Title: PHP Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021

There may be a requirement where the existing data in a MySQL table needs to be modified. You can do so by using the SQL UPDATE command. This will modify any field value of any MySQL table.

Syntax

The following code block has a generic SQL syntax of the UPDATE command to modify the data in the MySQL table −

UPDATE table_name SET field1 = new-value1, field2 = new-value2
[WHERE Clause]

• You can update one or more field altogether.
• You can specify any condition using the WHERE clause.
• You can update the values in a single table at a time.

The WHERE clause is very useful when you want to update the selected rows in a table.

Updating Data from the Command Prompt

This will use the SQL UPDATE command with the WHERE clause to update the selected data in the MySQL table tutorials_tbl.

Example

The following example will update the tutorial_title field for a record having the tutorial_id as 3.

root@host# mysql -u root -p password;
Enter password:*******

mysql> use TUTORIALS;
Database changed

mysql> UPDATE tutorials_tbl
   → SET tutorial_title = ''Learning JAVA''
   → WHERE tutorial_id = 3;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.04 sec)
Rows matched: 1  Changed: 1  Warnings: 0

mysql>

Updating Data Using a PHP Script

PHP uses mysqli query() or mysql_query() function to update records in a MySQL table. This function takes two parameters and returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.

Syntax

$mysqli→query($sql,$resultmode)

Example

Try the following example to update a record in a table −

Copy and paste the following example as mysql_example.php −

<html>
   <head>
      <title>Updating MySQL Table</title>
   </head>
   <body>
      <?php
         $dbhost = ''localhost
         $dbuser = ''root
         $dbpass = ''root@123
         $dbname = ''TUTORIALS
         $mysqli = new mysqli($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass, $dbname);

         if($mysqli→connect_errno ) {
            printf("Connect failed: %s<br />", $mysqli→connect_error);
            exit();
         }
         printf(''Connected successfully.<br />'');

         if ($mysqli→query(''UPDATE tutorials_tbl set tutorial_title = "Learning Java" where tutorial_id = 4'')) {
            printf("Table tutorials_tbl updated successfully.<br />");
         }
         if ($mysqli→errno) {
            printf("Could not update table: %s<br />", $mysqli→error);
         }
         $sql = "SELECT tutorial_id, tutorial_title, tutorial_author, submission_date FROM tutorials_tbl";

         $result = $mysqli→query($sql);

         if ($result→num_rows > 0) {
            while($row = $result→fetch_assoc()) {
               printf("Id: %s, Title: %s, Author: %s, Date: %d <br />",
                  $row["tutorial_id"],
                  $row["tutorial_title"],
                  $row["tutorial_author"],
                  $row["submission_date"]);
            }
         } else {
            printf(''No record found.<br />'');
         }
         mysqli_free_result($result);
         $mysqli→close();
      ?>
   </body>
</html>

Output

Access the mysql_example.php deployed on apache web server and verify the output. Here we”ve entered multiple records in the table before running the select script.

Connected successfully.
Table tutorials_tbl updated successfully.
Id: 1, Title: MySQL Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021
Id: 2, Title: HTML Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021
Id: 3, Title: PHP Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021
Id: 4, Title: Learning Java, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021
Id: 5, Title: Apache Tutorial, Author: Suresh, Date: 2021