Resources for Developers Using Stored Programs

The introduction of stored programs in MySQL 5 is a significant milestone in the evolution of the MySQL language. For any new technology to be absorbed and leveraged fully, users of that technology need lots of support and guidance in how best to utilize it. Our objective is to offer in this book complete and comprehensive coverage of the MySQL stored program language.

We are certain, however, that you will need help in other ways, so in the following sections we describe additional resources that either complement this book (by providing information about other MySQL technologies) or provide community-based support or late-breaking news. In these sections we provide quick summaries of many of these resources. By taking full advantage of these resources, many of which are available either free or at a relatively low cost, you will greatly improve the quality of your MySQL development experienceand your resulting code.

1.3.1. Books

Over the years, the MySQL series from O'Reilly has grown to include quite a long list of books. Here we list some of the books currently available that we feel could be pertinent to the MySQL stored program developer, as well as relevant books from other publishers. Please check out the MySQL area of the O'Reilly OnLAMP web site (http://www.onlamp.com/onlamp/general/mysql.csp) for more complete information.

MySQL Stored Procedure Programming, by Guy Harrison with Steven Feuerstein

This is the book you are holding now (or maybe even viewing online). This book was designed to be a complete and comprehensive guide to the MySQL stored program language. However, this book does not attempt complete coverage of the MySQL server, the SQL language, or other programming languages that you might use with MySQL. Therefore, you might want to complement this book with one or more other topics from the O'Reilly catalog or evenheaven forbidfrom another publisher!

MySQL in a Nutshell, by Russell Dyer

This compact quick-reference manual covers the MySQL SQL language, utility programs, and APIs for Perl, PHP, and C. This book is the ideal companion for any MySQL user (O'Reilly).

Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL, by Hugh Williams and David Lane

This is a comprehensive guide to creating web-based applications using PHP and MySQL. It covers PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) and provides a variety of complete case studies (O'Reilly).

MySQL, by Paul DuBois

This classic referencenow in its third editionis a comprehensive reference to MySQL development and administration. The third edition includes prerelease coverage of MySQL 5.0, including some information about stored procedures, functions, and triggers (SAMS).

High Performance MySQL, by Jeremy Zawodny and Derek Balling

This book covers the construction of high-performance MySQL server environments, along with how you can tune applications to take advantage of these environments. The book focuses on optimization, benchmarking, backups, replication, indexing, and load balancing (O'Reilly).

MySQL Cookbook, by Paul DuBois

This cookbook provides quick and easily applied recipes for common MySQL problems ranging from program setup to table manipulation and transaction management to data import/export and web interaction (O'Reilly).

Pro MySQL, by Michael Krukenberg and Jay Pipes

This book covers many advanced MySQL topics, including index structure, internal architecture, replication, clustering, and new features in MySQL 5.0. Some coverage of stored procedures, functions, and triggers is included, although much of the discussion is based on early MySQL 5 beta versions (APress).

MySQL Design and Tuning, by Robert D. Schneider

This is a good source of information on advanced development and administration topics, with a focus on performance (MySQL Press).

SQL in a Nutshell, by Kevin Kline, et al.

MySQL stored procedures, functions, and triggers rely on the SQL language to interact with database tables. This is a reference to the SQL language as implemented in Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, and MySQL (O'Reilly).

Learning SQL, by Alan Beaulieu

This book provides an excellent entry point for those unfamiliar with SQL. It covers queries, grouping, sets, filtering, subqueries, joins, indexes, and constraints, along with exercises (O'Reilly).

1.3.2. Internet Resources

There are also some excellent web sites available to MySQL programmers, including some areas devoted to stored programming. You should also make sure to look at the web site for this book (described in the Preface) for updates, errata, and other MySQL information.

MySQL

MySQL AB offers the most comprehensive collection of white papers, documentation, and forums on MySQL in general and MySQL stored programming in particular. Start at http://www.mysql.com. We outline some specific areas later.

MySQL Developer Zone

http://dev.mysql.com/ is the main entry point for MySQL programmers. From here you can easily access software downloads, online forums, white papers, documentation, and the bug-tracking system.

MySQL online documentation

The MySQL reference manualincluding sections on stored procedures, functions, and triggersis available online at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/. You can also download the manual in various formats from here, or you can order various selections in printed book format at http://dev.mysql.com/books/mysqlpress/index.html.

MySQL forums

MySQL forums are great places to discuss MySQL features with others in the MySQL community. The MySQL developers are also frequent participants in these forums. The general forum index can be found at http://forums.mysql.com/. The stored procedure forum includes discussions of both procedures and functions, and there is a separate forum for triggers.

MySQL blogs

There are many people blogging about MySQL nowadays, and MySQL has consolidated many of the most significant feeds on the Planet MySQL web site at http://www.planetmysql.org/.

MySQL stored routines library

Giuseppe Maxia initiated this routine library, which collects general-purpose MySQL 5 stored procedures and functions. The library is still young, but already there are some extremely useful routines available. For example, you will find routines that emulate arrays, automate repetitive tasks, and perform crosstab manipulations. Check it out at http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/mysql-sr-lib/.

O'Reilly's OnLAMP MySQL section

O'Reilly hosts the OnLAMP site, which is dedicated to the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python) of which MySQL is such an important part. OnLAMP includes numerous MySQL articles, which you can find at http://www.onlamp.com/onlamp/general/mysql.csp.