Suppose you want to send a message from one SQL session to one or more other sessions, like "Hey, session#13, here is the latest figure for your calculation, please acknowledge". I'll say what Oracle and EnterpriseDB and DB2 do, then rate the various ways to implement something similar in MySQL and MariaDB, and finish with a demo of the procedure that we use, which is available as part of an open-source package.

The syntax was established by Oracle, with EnterpriseDB and IBM following suit. The details are in the Oracle 12c manual and the DB2 9.7 manual. The oversimplification is this:

  DBMS_PIPE.PACK_MESSAGE('message');
  SET status = DBMS_PIPE.SEND_MESSAGE('channel#1');
  SET status = …

The MySQL manual says:
"mysql Logging
On Unix, the mysql client logs statements executed interactively to a history file. By default, this file is named .mysql_history in your home directory. To specify a different file, set the value of the MYSQL_HISTFILE environment variable."
The trouble with that is: it doesn't tell you what you don't need to know. So I'll tell you.

Heritage

The history-file concept that MySQL and MariaDB are following is indeed "on Unix" and specifically is like the GNU History Library. There is a dependence on external libraries, Readline or …

The MySQL manual says

--socket=file_name, -S file_name ... On Unix, the name of the Unix socket file to use, for connections made using a named pipe to a local server.
The default Unix socket file name is /tmp/mysql.sock.

which might surprise folks who've had to contend with the error message
"Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '[something-other-than-/tmp/mysql.sock]'".

I'll try to explain here why the name is often something quite different, how to know what the MySQL server is really listening for, what the fixes are for either users or application developers, and why it still matters.

Why the name is not always /tmp/mysql.sock

First, the Linux Foundation publishes a document "Filesystem Hierarchy Standard". Version 2.3 says …

I have merged a debugger for MySQL/MariaDB stored procedures and functions into our GUI client and posted the source and binaries on github. It allows breakpoint, clear, continue, next, skip, step, tbreakpoint, and variable displays. Features which are rare or missing in other debuggers include:
its current platform is Linux;
it allows breakpoints on functions which are invoked within SQL statements;
it never changes existing stored procedures or functions;
it is integrated with a general GUI client;
it allows commands like gdb and allows menu items / shortcut keys like ddd;
it is available on github as C++ source with GPL licence.

It's alpha and it's fragile but it works. Here is a demo.

Start the client and connect to a running server, as root. Actually the required privileges are merely for creation of certain objects and SUPER, but …

I've gathered the main critiques of MySQL / MariaDB stored procedures, and will try some defences.

Monoglots

The critique:

SQL/PSM is the standard 4GL and it was the work of Andrew Eisenberg. Andy based it on ADA. Unless you are military, you have never seen ADA. Be grateful it is dead.
-- Joe Celko, reminiscing about his days on the SQL standard committee

Actually I believe Mr Celko likes SQL/PSM, which is the standard that MySQL and MariaDB follow. Here at last is your chance to see some Ada code, and compare with MySQL code ...

Ada

MySQL

declare a: integer;
begin

  a := 0;
  loop
    a := a + 100;
    exit when a = 200;
  end loop;
  if a /= 300 then
    a := 400;
  else
    a …

I know of seven DBMSs that support GET DIAGNOSTICS: DB2, Oracle Rdb, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Teradata, …

The PostgreSQL manual says:

"The standard's definition of the behavior of temporary tables is widely ignored. PostgreSQL's behavior on this point is similar to that of several other SQL databases."

The first sentence is false. The second sentence could be rephrased as "MySQL copied us", although nobody else did, as far as I know.

The standard's definition is widely followed

I base this claim on the documentation of DB2, Oracle Rdb, Oracle 12c, and …

We've written a GUI application. Its command-line options are like those in the mysql client. Its graphic features are an SQL-statement text editor and a scrollable SQL result set. It runs on Linux now and we believe it could be ported to other platforms.

Here are four screenshots.

The startup is as non-GUI as can be -- in fact it gets options from the command line, or from my.cnf, the same way that the mysql client does. Wherever it seemed reasonable, we asked: What would mysql do?

The statement (at the bottom of the screenshot) has the usual GUI features for editing, and has syntax highlighting -- comments are green, reserved words are magenta, and so on.

…

MySQL's support of the BINARY and VARBINARY data type is good, and the BINARY and VARBINARY data types are good things. And now the details. What applies here for MySQL applies for MariaDB as well.

Who supports VARBINARY

There's an SQL:2008 standard optional feature T021 "BINARY and VARBINARY data types". Our book has a bigger description, but here is one that is more up to date:

A role is a bundle of GRANTed privileges which can be assigned to users or which can take the place of users. When there are hundreds or thousands of users, administration becomes a horrible burden if the DBMS doesn't support roles. Our online ANSI-standard book has syntax descriptions. Other DBMSs do support roles, and MySQL has had a worklog task "WL#988 Roles" for many years. Earlier attempts to implement them included a Google Summer of Code project and a MySQL tool released by Google.

Now another google-summer-coder, Vicențiu Ciorbaru, has put together something which will be in MariaDB. MariaDB's official blog says this is …