A.1. Obtaining Sample Source Code and Data

The examples in this book are based on source code and sample data from three distributions. Two of these (the recipes and mcb-kjv distributions) are available at the MySQL Cookbook companion web site, which you can visit at this address:

http://www.kitebird.com/mysql-cookbook/

The recipes distribution is the primary source of examples. It's available as a compressed tar file (recipes.tar.gz) or as a ZIP file (recipes.zip). Either distribution format when unpacked will create a directory named recipes.

The recipes distribution contains programs as shown in the book, but in many cases also includes implementations in additional languages. For example, a recipe shown in the book using Python may be available on the site in Perl, PHP, or Java as well. This may save you some translation effort should you wish to convert a program as shown in the book to a different language. I expect to update the distribution from time to time, so you may want to check back occasionally for updates. If you would like to contribute a translation for inclusion into the distribution, let me know by sending email to mysql-cookbook@kitebird.com.

The Kitebird site also provides access to the mcb-kjv distribution, which contains the text of the King James Version of the Bible, formatted suitably for loading into MySQL. It's used in Chapter 4, as the source of a reasonably large body of of text for examples that demonstrate FULLTEXT searches, and occasionally elsewhere in the book. This distribution is provided separately from the recipes distribution due to its size. It's available as a compressed tar file (mcb-kjv.tar.gz) or as a ZIP file (mcb-kjv.zip). Either distribution format when unpacked will create a directory named mcb-kjv.

The mcb-kjv distribution is derived from the KJV text available at the Unbound Bible site at Biola University (http://unbound.biola.edu). The distribution includes notes that describe how it differs from the one available at Biola.

Text files in the recipes and mcb-kjv distributions were created with tabstops set every four spaces. If a file doesn't seem to line up properly when you view it in your editor, try setting your tabstops similarly. For printing, you can run files through expand -4. For example, if you normally print a file like this:

% pr filename | lpr

Try this instead:

% expand -4 filename | pr | lpr

The third source of information used for examples in this book is the baseball database produced by The Baseball Archive. If you want to try out the examples that use this database, visit the Archive's web site at:

http://baseball1.com/

Examples in this book use Version 4.5 of the baseball database, which is available in Access 2000, Access 97, and comma-delimited text file formats. See the baseball1 directory of the recipes distribution for instructions that describe how to load the comma-delimited format into MySQL. (See also Recipe 10.37.)