It’s appalling that in this day of technological advancements and communication, the excuse for publishing dated information just doesn’t fly. 50 or 100 years ago you could be excused for writing something that was 6 months out of date, yet this article “Which Database Is Right For You?” Dated (2006-01-05) states:

So what doesn’t MySQL support? Today, MySQL doesn’t support views (’virtual’ tables made from other tables), stored procedures (small programs that can be stored in the database) or triggers (actions that the database can be told to do automatically when certain things happen). However, many of these features are promised in future versions.

Well as I finished the article, looking forward to the contact details to notify this “writer” of their dated information, …

One piece of SQL functionality that doesn’t appear to have any consistency or an ANSI SQL Standard is the management of system generated sequential numbers, used for example in suggorate keys.

MySQL uses AUTO_INCREMENT which serves the purposes adequately, however in my documenting of differences with Oracle in my upcoming MySQL Conference presentation “MySQL for Oracle Developers” there a number of key differences with Oracle’s SEQUENCE usage.

MySQL AUTO_INCREMENT to Oracle SEQUENCE Differences

• AUTO_INCREMENT is limited to one column per table
• AUTO_INCREMENT must be assigned to a specific table.column (not allowing multi table use) …

I guess it was punishment for falling off the wagon and letting my inbox get so many messages which were not filed away. Yesterday the email server had a database crash and every single email in every single one of my inboxes was marked as unread. I use IMAP with server-side filters (currently sieve, used to be procmail) to sort my incoming mail into about 40 different mailboxes, so you can imagine how I suddenly feel a bit lost and unsure about which things I’ve already read.

In happier news, quickfile is another reason to love thunderbird. Now I just need to find a way to back up all my IMAP mailboxes into a MySQL database so that I can have better backups and analysis, and I’ll be happy(I’ve realized that I’m unconditionally happy).

We’re getting a bunch of new users signed up to the MySQL user group in …

I’ve never used database columns that embedded defined valid values within the schema definition. Within MySQL there are 2 definitions, ENUM and SET. There are a few reasons why, but first an explanation of these data types.

In summary, using the MySQL Sample Database.

CREATE TABLE film (
film_id INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
...
rating ENUM('G','PG','PG-13','R','NC-17') DEFAULT 'G',
special_features SET('Trailers','Commentaries','Deleted Scenes','Behind the Scenes') DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (film_id)
)ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;


So from this, the following commands allow you to inspect this information via mysql.

…

As part of my next conference presentation Overcoming the Challenges of Establishing Service and Support Channels I’ve been struggling to find with my professional sources, any quality organisations that provide full support for a technology stack, for example a LAMP stack, or a Java Servlet stack.

Restricted to searching via online, I’ve been impressed by what I’ve found at Spike Source www.spikesource.com. An organisation with an experienced CEO, well known in the Java Industry. They certainly have all the buzz words covered in their product information.

Benefits of their SpikeSource Core Stack.

• Fully tested and certified
• Installs in minutes with integrated …

Why oh why would you want to do this. Well it my case, I’ve committed to developing a web application using MySQL 5 features, knowing that I had to upgrade my production server from 4.0

Well as part of doing this, I hit a stumbling block. My current production web server runs RedHat 7.3, and even with all the latest rpm updates, it does not have glib 2.3 which is required for MySQL 5. I’m no guru, but trying to upgrade from Redhat 7.3 to 9, to at least get these rpm is not an easy process. I’m not confident to try to compile glib 2.3 and all it’s dependancies on a production server, nor is it possible to recompile MySQL down (I suspect not). All just too many variables. It appears the time has come to scrap it and work with a more current RedHat Enterprise Linux version. Down side, the 25 web sites are not going to be too happy.

Anyway, as an interim to at least move forward as much as possible I dowgraded the provided …

I’m not there yet with compiling MySQL Workbench from the previously released 1.0.0-alpha source for linux. I’d like to think I’m getting closer but not really certain. I’m getting good response to my Bug Report #16604 from MySQL Staff. Seems I work at it during the day, update, and then next morning there is some more info, but still doesn’t cut the cheese, as it just moves me to next error.

So in my last edition, I got an error and installed a lua product (which was the right one), but I didn’t do a configure again, just a compile. I bet that’s a C/C++ 101 lesson. Also as per request, added Java options consistent with my environment. So:


$ cd /src/mysql-workbench-1.0.0/mysql-gui-common/
$ ./configure --enable-grt --enable-canvas --with-java-ldflags="-L/opt/j2sdk1.4.2_10/jre/lib/i386/client/ -ljvm"
./configure: line …

I am not sure why this thread ended up on the pgsql hackers list, but nobody took any measures from stopping it and instead a very interesting and detailed discussion of the pros and cons of surrogate keys in RDBMS schema design ensued. So this thread should be of interest to anyone using an RDBMS be it MySQL, PostGreSQL, SQLite or any other alternative.

This blog post should not be mistaken as an intivation to post to the hackers mailinglist as I think most points have been raised at this point. If you do feel you have something to add please make sure you have actually read through the thread and the therein linked blog posts. Just putting in this disclaimer so that I do not get my head chopped off for posting the thread link :-)

As a quick primer: WTF is a surrogate key?

A surrogate by definition is an artificial or …

Did I push to much in my last post? I don’t think so, but I guess it’s a fragile balance sometimes in Open Source between those keen end users, and the developers that do give so much towards their own creations (I understand, I’m in that category myself).

I was very proud of my work yesterday, it took a whole day of my time (I do have better things to do, like finish my own Open Source project HTMLtags, while will allow me to build my sample application, which I can then use for my MySQL Users Conference presentation). I learnt to dig around the net a lot, go on the wild goose chase several times, understand some more under the hoods of compiling, libraries and dependencies in the GTK world I would have otherwise not really cared about. But as I said, I got to a brick wall by the end, and it was dishearting.

It …

One of the great benefits of Open Source, it’s Free, and you can get great support, sometimes even from the developers directly (rather then 5 levels of paid customer support for a commercial product). One of the greatest banes of Open Source, if you have a problem, and nobody has experienced and documented in a forum etc the problem you have with the same OS, libraries etc, you could be totally up the creek without a paddle, boat and for that matter water. (luckily you still have oxgyen)

Well, I’m having this problem with MySQL Workbench. A product promising so much, but if you can’t get the binary working on Linux to even start, where do you go.

You will see via the Forums, I’m not the only person. This is the current …